The northern bobwhite of the Mid-Atlantic: a landowners guide to their ecology and management

Abstract

Northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) have long been aesthetically and economically prized gamebirds in North America. Historically, bobwhite flourished in traditional farmlands where farming and grazing practices created an early successional patchwork of agriculture, grasslands, old fields, and woody edges; under persistent social and biological pressures like predation and hunting, suitable habitat was bobwhite’s safeguard against obliteration.

Since WWII, however, farming practices have changed, and the bobwhite’s habitat has changed with them. For those who grew up before the 1960’s the “bob-white” song echoing over the farmlands of eastern America provides a nostalgic memory of a landscape that is quickly disappearing.

Current trends toward cleaner farming, larger plot sizes and conversion to non-native grasses or crowded pine stands, and conversion to suburbia have reduced the amount of habitat available to bobwhite nesting and escape cover. For states such as New Jersey, which is the most developed state in the Union, these habitat conversions are especially drastic. Consequently, for at least half a century, bobwhite numbers have followed a downward trend throughout the bird’s range.