Managing for quail

Sericea is flowering almost a month early due to drought. Gonna have to hit it. Native grasses are already put their seed heads up. Only one of my quail plots came up. We need rain. On the bright side with the drought I am seeding millet on mudflats as my pond recedes. If we get some October rain it could be awesome. Still seeing lots of quail around.

What kind of millet are you planting. I have been planting chiwappa earlier and now golden millet around my pond as it receeds - but the dang black bellied whistling ducks have invaded and eat it as soon as it sprouts - and then dont have the decency to stay until duck season opens.
 
Jap millet. Ive also got buckwheat on the pond dam.
 
Sand plum likes the sandy soils as the name suggests. It also is shorter in height and width when mature. If you compare fruits the sand hill plum has a waxy look to it. I’ll try and get a picture when they ripen up.
We have been out gathering plums for jelly. Sandhill is the waxy looking fellow.
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What's your thoughts; Sandhill or American plum?

Also, do they need stratification or anything to grow from seed? I grabbed a handful for attempts at getting them started at other places on the place.
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Look like regular american plums.
I just pitch them on the ground where I can yhem to grow and let nature do its thing.
 
After work today I drove to my place to look at a couple of small food plots recently planted. As I drove past an old food plot, a covey of quail flushed. Looked like about 18 birds.

In about 50 yards past that I came up on one of the new small plots recently planted. More birds flushed, but I couldn't count them.

I drove another 150 yards to the next new plot, and as I got to the edge of it, another covey flushed. This was the biggest one. They just kept coming up - maybe 25 or more.

All these birds just flew out into the NWSGs.

It was ironic, because I noticed that two of the most important quail foods that you will find anywhere were just beginning to flower.

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Thats extraordinarily cool! That you have grown a great buck(s) is great and I hope you get him. However to have managed your habitat to have quail like that is far more impressive to me. Bespeaks volumes to your land management . Nicely done.

I have been wanting to do a video titled " If you want big bucks you have to have butterflies" . The meaning is butterflies are an indicator specie of a healthy habitat. Same for quail . Create a habitat where quail thrive and it proposes the entire ecosystem is fully functioning.
 
Thats extraordinarily cool! That you have grown a great buck(s) is great and I hope you get him. However to have managed your habitat to have quail like that is far more impressive to me. Bespeaks volumes to your land management . Nicely done.

I have been wanting to do a video titled " If you want big bucks you have to have butterflies" . The meaning is butterflies are an indicator specie of a healthy habitat. Same for quail . Create a habitat where quail thrive and it proposes the entire ecosystem is fully functioning.

Thanks Rusty. It's a labor of love for me.

If you do that video, I hope to be able to see it. It sounds like it would be very educational and enjoyable.
 
Our numbers are down this year due to drought. What I burned this spring never really came back grass wise, however it brought up alot of sunflowers and other forbs.
 
I own land where I used to bird hunt thirty years ago. I have now owned this place for fifteen years and not seen or heard a quail on it since I have owned it. I remember working with young bird dogs in the 70’s and 80’s and the cotton rats would drive them nuts. I bush hogged four acres of a weedy last year WR/WW food plot and did not see a single cotton rat or rabbit. That was kind of surprising. Our state, along with many states in the south, has initiated a concerted effort to bring back the quail. I am in a bear/turkey hunting lease that is all commercial pine timberland - and I still see birds regularly when on that property.
 
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