Conservation Column: Leave it be | Voices | atchisonglobenow.com – atchisonglobenow.com

When you were on your tractor last summer mowing the roadside you may have noticed a bobwhite quail run across the road, you might have been excited to see it too. What you probably didnt notice was the covey of quail chicks that you mowed right over the top of. Thats the unfortunate thing about quail, their survival strategy is to lay low and only flush when necessary. For quail, the number one cause of population declines is habitat loss; with an average lifespan of only 8 months, its crucial to provide quail with the habitat they need to make it through the season to reproduce next year. One of the best ways we can do that is by leaving our roadsides, waterways and idle areas alone.

In intensively farmed areas like where we live, some of the last habitat we have is in the roadside ditches. When you mow a roadside, not only are you potentially killing quail outright, but youre knocking out a valuable food source wildflowers. These plants attract insect pollinators which make up over 90% of the quail chicks diet for the first several weeks of their life. Later in the year, these wildflowers will go to seed and provide a crucial food source for the quail in the winter.

Mowing also knocks down crucial habitat and cover for quail. In order to make it through the winter with the snow, ice, rain and wind, quail require adequate cover from the elements. Ideally, this cover comes in two forms. Native bunch grasses such as big bluestem, little bluestem, and Indiangrass. Non-native grasses such as brome and fescue are detrimental to wildlife habitat because these are sod forming grasses and are very difficult for quail (especially chicks) to move through. Brome and fescue also choke out and out compete beneficial wildflowers which decreases plant diversity. The other type of cover quail need is brush such as dogwood or American Plum. Brush not only provides critical cover for quail during the winter, but it serves as hiding grounds from aerial predators like hawks and owls. On top of that, shrubs like American Plum, Elderberry, and even Sumac (Sumac tea is a wonderful drink to try) provide valuable fruit for people too.

You may be noticing a common theme between what I wrote this week with quail and previously with monarch butterflies. LEAVE THE ROADSIDES ALONE! Its one of the simplest things we can do to boost quail and songbird numbers and help our pollinators out too. It saves us time and money and its an easy step in conserving habitat. Thats not to say that spraying and mowing roadsides and idle areas never has its place. There are instances where we need to use those management practices for the greater good. For instance, invasive species such as Johnsongrass and Sericea Lespedeza pose a much greater threat to habitat than mowing or spraying. Even brome and fescue, which I mentioned as being wildlife unfriendly could be sprayed and planted to native plants to improve habitat for wildlife. Save those practices for when its necessary. If you do need to spray, resort to spot spraying to minimize killing of non-target species. If you want to mow the roadside by your house, consider mowing a single pass, wait until after nesting season to mow, and dont mow the grass any shorter than a foot. That way, the next time youre out on your tractor youll feel a little better when you see that covey of quail.

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Conservation Column: Leave it be | Voices | atchisonglobenow.com - atchisonglobenow.com