I find Skip's discussion on the pheasant rebound he's seeing in his neighborhood interesting and encouraging!
I've been visiting Iowa for 18 years. I had never seen a pheasant in the wild until traveling in Iowa. My close friend, Paul Knox, checked
my trail cams years ago, and my favorite picture over the years was the first one we captured of a pheasant! I'll never forget it!
I've had lots of help from Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever on projects and suggestions over the years. They do a good job providing
habitat with the money that's donated to them. The two biggest projects we put in converted smallish tillable fields into quail or
pollinator habitat, which was great for the birds, deer, and all the wildlife! Those projects provided better income than the
tillable rent I'd been receiving. We've found more sheds in those fields than in the rest of the farm. I learned a lot from PF/QF and still
look forward to their visits. We've put in lots of small projects...planting sorghum, switch, etc in small areas not being utilized. Paul Knox
hated seeing space not being utilized! I've figured out how important getting rid of the predators with trapping, etc is. I was a slow
learner in that area but I'm doing better and need to do more!
I talked to a PF/QF rep who was visiting in Mississippi recently. Pheasants don't survive in Mississippi but there was a huge quail
population of quail in the 40's and 50's. It's pretty cool that PF/QF is placing 3 biologists in the Mississippi Delta area to work on
restoring the quail population! I assume they will work to provide habitat to be utilized by the public. They will do a lot with education
of the youth, as well as things that can be done on some of the farms in the area.
Anyway, Skip got me to thinking some this morning. The coffee helped too.
I've been visiting Iowa for 18 years. I had never seen a pheasant in the wild until traveling in Iowa. My close friend, Paul Knox, checked
my trail cams years ago, and my favorite picture over the years was the first one we captured of a pheasant! I'll never forget it!
I've had lots of help from Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever on projects and suggestions over the years. They do a good job providing
habitat with the money that's donated to them. The two biggest projects we put in converted smallish tillable fields into quail or
pollinator habitat, which was great for the birds, deer, and all the wildlife! Those projects provided better income than the
tillable rent I'd been receiving. We've found more sheds in those fields than in the rest of the farm. I learned a lot from PF/QF and still
look forward to their visits. We've put in lots of small projects...planting sorghum, switch, etc in small areas not being utilized. Paul Knox
hated seeing space not being utilized! I've figured out how important getting rid of the predators with trapping, etc is. I was a slow
learner in that area but I'm doing better and need to do more!
I talked to a PF/QF rep who was visiting in Mississippi recently. Pheasants don't survive in Mississippi but there was a huge quail
population of quail in the 40's and 50's. It's pretty cool that PF/QF is placing 3 biologists in the Mississippi Delta area to work on
restoring the quail population! I assume they will work to provide habitat to be utilized by the public. They will do a lot with education
of the youth, as well as things that can be done on some of the farms in the area.
Anyway, Skip got me to thinking some this morning. The coffee helped too.