Date: 5/31/25 6:52 am From: <jwdavis...> <jwdavis...> Subject: Re: BOB ... BOBWHITE!
You are right, Northern Bobwhites "don't do fescue" or other nonnative plants and those need to be converted to native warm season grasses. These grasses are also Anti native insects. There are 119 million acres of pastures and exotic grasslands that are worthless for habitat for Northern Bobwhites and grassland birds. If you drive by these and do not see grassland birds on the wire or sitting on a fence post you can conclude that those acres are of little value for grassland birds.
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has had publications on the Management of the Northern Bobwhites and contact their local Lands Biologists to get help with what you need to do for restoration. There is also a program called Acres For Wildlife and the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, and the internet is replete with how to information. The Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) is a habitat-based plan prepared by the Southeast Quail Study Group Technical Committee. The plan aims to provide a roadmap to restore regional bobwhite populations. The northern bobwhite is a state-identified target species of the Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) partnership, a collaborative approach to conserve habitat on working lands.
The Northern Bobwhite was treated like the Batard Child for decades and its decline was ignored, and efforts and money were spent on deer and turkey management. Native pastures were converted to exotic grasses and this replaced warm season grasses, small farms and gardens with habitat as non-supporting as a paved freeway.
I was a member of the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative for 20 years and there is more to recovery than can be included in an email. If you want to see what Northern Bobwhite habitat looks like, take a drive along the Buffalo Road on the Ouachita National Forest south of Waldron, Arkansas or some of the AGFC demonstratio areas. Forty Acres of excellent habitat can support four coveys, but you also need to talk your neighbors into joining the efforts. Stocking pen raised birds will not be successful and native birds finding 40 acres in a sea of worthless habitat may be a long shot, but it has happened.
I wish you well in your efforts, but it is a tough task ahead and most give up before success is achieved.
Jerry Wayne Davis
Hot Springs, AR
________________________________
From: The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...> on behalf of Donald C Steinkraus <00000ee1e1d4ca69-dmarc-request...>
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2025 9:18 PM
To: <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: Re: BOB ... BOBWHITE!
We just made a trip to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Preserve in Oklahoma and were so happy to hear bobwhite every time we got out of the car. The habitat there is excellent for them. We had not heard bobwhite in years in NW AR.
Do any of you birders think it is possible to bring bobwhite back to NW AR? We have forty acres: about half pastures and half woods. We have tried to restore about 7 acres to native prairie plants. The other pastures are primarily fescue, Johnson grass, orchard grass, and don't seem suitable for bobwhite.
There seem to be so many factors against bobwhite: ticks, coyotes, foxes, hawks, domestic cats, snakes, human hunters.
If any one thinks we could restore some quail to our property near West Fork, please tell us how.
Don Steinkraus
________________________________
From: The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...> on behalf of Jack and Pam <00000064a46c579c-dmarc-request...>
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:46 AM
To: <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: Re: BOB ... BOBWHITE!
For many years, my parents have made an annual visit to Washington, D.C., for a week of museums and lectures, courtesy of my historian and World War II veteran father. What I remember most from those trips was hearing Bobwhite call from our motel grounds across the Potomac in Virginia. I could see the tip of the Washington Monument and hear the birds calling. Of course, there is no suitable habitat for Bobwhite in that area today.
When Pam and I moved to Arkansas 25 years ago, we occasionally heard Bobwhites in the fields near Erbie campground, and some years, even on our property. Then, silence would follow for at least 10 years. We were thrilled to listen to them again in 2023, and since then, it has been silent again.
On Wednesday, May 28, 2025 at 03:36:49 PM CDT, <jwdavis...> <jwdavis...> wrote:
Thanks for the note and report. People expect birds to nest on the freeways and in manicured yards. Too many people think of the Northern Bobwhite as just a bird species people used to hunt. They fail to realize that the habitat needed by this species and the disappearance of the Bob Bobwhite call is also the habitat needed and the decline of by 46 other bird species. The status of clean fencerows is a determent to many species, both birds and mammals. The loggerhead shrike is one species example that has a mirrored decline with the Northern Bobwhite. How often do you see the Shrike? Has anyone missed these species? The silence is deafening.
Jerry Wayne Davis
Hot Springs, AR
________________________________
From: The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...> on behalf of Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2025 11:10 AM
To: <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
Subject: BOB ... BOBWHITE!
Red-cockaded Woodpeckers were chief draws for me when in late 1980s I became involved with efforts on Ouachita NF to stop their decline and recover the population. Trips to RCW sites in Waldron area often included seeing and hearing Northern Bobwhites. Eventually I realized how ecologically connected they are in the mature, park-like Shortleaf Pine-dominated forests with a grassy understory rich in plant diversity. This diversity is required to produce insects and seeds bobwhites require.
Later as a Forest Service biologist, I was climbing RCW trees. From that lofty perch, hearing the strong whistled calls in the forest: BOB … BOBWHITE! And seeing a bobwhite covey foraging its way underneath me.
A healthy bobwhite population was a great thrill for me, coming from Fayetteville, where the population was in rapid decline. Christmas Bird Count totals in excess of 100 bobs continued into the 1990s, then plunged rapidly towards 0.
Fields became subdivisions and shopping malls. Plant and insect diversity replaced by urban yard monocultures where native plants are replaced and insects poisoned. Now we have more shopping opportunities. We do not have Northern Bobwhites. Bobwhite is now just part of the town’s history, like the Civil War Battle of Fayetteville.
So this is my segue to Memorial Day weekend, just passed. I have had enough of no bobwhites.
In past years this has been easily fixed by a 25-minute trip to Siloam Springs and its Chesney Prairie Natural Area. Siloam and Chesney were on the sidelines of explosive urban growth in Northwest Arkansas City up to a few years ago. No more. Committed, energetic management for plant diversity and Tallgrass Prairie restoration continues at Chesney, but Siloam is increasingly engulfed by urbanizing monocultures. Rare Oklahoma Grass Pink orchids persist at Chesney, but bobs are gone.
So my fallback plan is a 45-minute drive from Fayetteville to the former Beaty Prairie in western Benton County. Bobwhites are hanging on, but each trip I make I see more of the urbanizing culture as in Fayetteville, Siloam. A former expansive pasture/hayfield with bobs is broken up a few acres at a time. Once I could hear 6 bobs calling. Now it’s houses, fields become mowed yards, with squeaky-clean fence lines a bobwhite could not walk to avoid a hawk.
Pretty grim. But it’s not the whole.
Over this Memorial Day period, I made trips full of bobwhite hopes. Northern Bobwhites YES: Prairie State Park north of Joplin, Missouri, about 2-hours from my house. eBird submission: https://ebird.org/checklist/S241595955 and https://ebird.org/checklist/S243009189. Robert S. Kerr Reservoir dam and spillway on Arkansas River: https://ebird.org/checklist/S243523352.
We have lost a lot. We will lose a lot more if we ever give up our backing for public lands managed to preserve our natural heritage. Keep our public lands public. Encourage our wealthy fellow citizens to follow Katharine Ordway who used much of her inherited wealth to save prairies – and Northern Bobwhites.
