“Bob white! Bob-bob-white!”
That’s a call very few hear anymore. It’s the call of a male quail in the spring, searching for a lady friend. Unfortunately, there are very few quail remaining, but my daughter Angelin recently sent me an audio of a quail whistling behind her house in Adams Farm, a suburb of Greensboro. Nearby are some fallow fields (awaiting development) and somehow a few quail have managed to eke out a living there and occasionally move into the swampy are of her neighborhood lake.
The primary reason for the rapidly declining quail population is loss of habitat, especially nesting habitat. Baby quail need to be on the move withing hours of hatching, or they succumb to snakes, hawks, dogs, cats, coons or any number of other predators. Quail can’t nest in fescue because it is too thick for the baby quail to move around – they are about the size of walnuts. Without good nesting grounds quail can’t successfully reproduce. A lack of good cover also exposes any nesting hens to predators. Studies have shown that the loss of most adult quail occurs not in winter, but on nests during the spring.
“Bob white!” Let’s hope we all hear more of that sweet call.