This past summer, I experienced a treat I didn’t expect would happen again in my lifetime. A covey of bobwhite quail made their summer home in the acreage around our home in Baldwin County. I cherished each “Bob-White” mating call I heard and caught glimpses of them entering several areas with thick vegetation.
That thick vegetation that provides protection for brood-rearing is one of the key ingredients for quail to survive and thrive, according to Caleb Blake, the Upland Game Bird Coordinator with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) Division.
“While we are not at the population we once had, where there is adequate habitat, I would say there can be or are stable populations if you know where to look,” Blake said. “Quail populations, in general, are stable. We’ve had about 80% decline in the past few decades. People look at the 1960s as the beginning of the decline, but that was just when we first started looking and doing the breeding-bird survey. It has probably been declining since post-World War II…