Habitat That’s For The Birds

Habitat That’s For The Birds

By Kent Boucher

How was your pheasant and quail season? Great, mediocre, disappointing? If you were disappointed I’m guessing it’s because you only flushed a few birds or because you should’ve dusted off your wingshooting skills a little better before the season. Practicing with some clays in the offseason is up to you, but the lack of birds is something that I can help with if you have the ability to improve the habitat where you hunt.

Build The Right Foundation
Pheasants are such an interesting case study among North American wildlife. Since you’re reading this article, I can assume you already know that the ring-necked pheasant is a non-native species on this continent, but it arrived here through intentional introduction efforts at a time when the nation was without much of its native wildlife following decades of subsistence and market hunting. Because of this reality it would stand to reason that pheasants wouldn’t thrive in habitats native to North America, but that isn’t the case at all. Pheasants have adapted extremely well to the grassland habitat that once covered much of our country’s middle. In Iowa almost all of these grassland acres are gone, and in the few places where grass covers a large number of acres, the native grass species have been replaced with much lower quality grasses such as smooth brome, reed canary, orchard, and Kentucky bluegrass. Pheasants can survive in these non-native grasses, but they don’t thrive in them like they do in native bunch grasses such as big bluestem, Indiangrass, switchgrass, and little bluestem. Quail are even more sensitive to the grass cover found within areas of available habitat, and are almost exclusively found around healthy stands of native prairie grasses. So, the first step to building a better place for both of these upland bird species to live is to reestablish native grasses as the foundation for upland grassland habitat.

Full Plate Food Sources
You may have heard of an interesting fella by the name of Judd McCullum. Judd is a Working-Class Bowhunter team member and one of the coolest people you could meet because of his fascination with all things natural. He invests much of his time roaming the acres of the farm he lives on looking for new natural curiosities that he can study. In a conversation about planting native perennial food plots, Judd once referred to native forb seed mixes as a “full plate” of nutrition for wildlife. That reference struck me as a great way to sum up the fact that not only do the species in the food plot provide a wide variety of different plants to be used as food, but it also explains how the food plot will provide for wildlife throughout the year. Pheasants and quail eat mostly insects and seeds. Native forb species are the best option for meeting both of these nutritional needs. A diverse forb mix will include early, mid, and late blooming species that will attract countless insect species during the hatch and brood rearing months and even into early fall as birds mature and put on fat for surviving the winter. Once the flowers have fallen a huge crop of seeds will be dropping to the ground for chicks and mature birds to forage all the way into the winter months. With this full plate menu being established, the next steps will be all about fine tuning the habitat to be the best in your section of land.

Dirt Don’t Hurt and Fire Won’t Either
Beginning in March and wrapping up in May the rural horizon of Iowa will always feature a plume of smoke towering into the atmosphere, and the culprit is almost always a CRP burn. CRP is of course an acronym for Conservation Reserve Program and includes ground that has typically been restored to native prairie species, and through decades of research and historical analysis of prairie management practices from indigenous people, prescribed burning has been adopted as the primary tool for managing prairie health. Fire helps upland birds primarily in two ways: First by improving the health of the prairie by removing old dead thatch that can shade out and hamper young plants from growing, returning the nutrients from the burnt dead organic matter back into the soil, and cutting down on invasive annual weeds that are not fire tolerant. Secondly, when the fire removes the layer of thatch on the soil it opens up bare dirt for pheasants and quail to find insects and seeds, as well as quickly navigate around the bunches of grass to evade predators. Fire is the prairie manager’s natural tool, and bare dirt between the prairie plants is the indicator for healthy upland habitat.

Habitat In and Out of Hunting Season
Brood rearing season is the most critical time of year for pheasants as that is when their population will be established for the year. Of course, the correct grass and forb cover that I mentioned earlier forms the foundation for the optimal habitat, but where the habitat is planted is also important. Most upland bird habitat in Iowa is found along stream banks and floodplains because that’s where CRP acres usually make the most sense to plant, but these areas come with important pros and cons to consider. The pros are the proximity to water which means plenty of moisture for the grasses and forbs, and more insects to consume. The con is springtime flooding. Spring flooding is one of the most significant deciding factors for pheasant population dynamics because of how it destroys nests, chills eggs, or even washes away chicks. The only way to help improve the odds of this not wiping out your fresh stock of new pheasants is to provide habitat in areas that are not vulnerable to spring flooding, but also try to avoid other hazards like perches for raptors, or long linear stretches of habitat that serve as buffet line drag strips for furry predators. Once hunting season has arrived and the chicks have matured into adult birds the primary habitat needs begin to shift to shelter from winter weather. All tall and mid height prairie grasses are good for habitat value, but not all prairie grasses hold up to snow equally well. In my experience Indiangrass, side oats grama and switchgrass hold up the best to heavy snow so favoring these species in a seed mix will help meet this need during the late part of the hunting season and on through the end of winter.

Woody Vegetation
One of the biggest threats to prairie habitat is the encroachment of trees. Eastern red cedars are the most notorious invaders, but they are a native species and if their numbers are held in check, they can add some incredible value to your pheasant and quail hunting ground as a refuge from snow, ice, and the below zero gales of late January. Another native tree species that is especially beneficial to quail is smooth sumac (be sure you don’t confuse this with its identical evil invasive twin tree of heaven). Quail prefer having low growing trees in close proximity to mid height prairie habitat (other good options include native dogwoods, and wild plums). Smooth sumac fits this description well so either supporting the sumac that is already present or establishing new plantings is a great way to take your bird habitat to the next level. One thing that both of these native tree species have in common is they don’t typically reach great heights and therefore don’t often serve as useful hunting perches for hawks, eagles and other raptors that love to prey on ground nesting birds. Cedars can reach fairly tall heights if they are allowed to live long enough so be sure to trim or cut down any that begin to serve this function for the local dive bombers.

I hope this list of chores will inspire you to grab your bird hunting woes by the horns and make the changes to your property that will ensure that your best seasons in the CRP are still ahead of you. Oh, and it’s still a good idea to brush up on those wingshooting skills too.