I was working in my yard yesterday when I was suddenly surprised
by an explosion of wing-flapping and clucking noises. I looked
up to find that my deck had been invaded by what I first thought
was a family of quail. There were many fledglings of about 1/2
size of an adult. All were capable of flight. As I looked around
I noticed that there were quails on the roof, in the trees and
there was at least three adults. There also seemed to be far
too many young to have been from one nest. It seems, then, that this
was a collection of several broods from various pairings. The
invasion only lasted a few minutes and then they took off for other
parts of the wooded neighborhood.

I'd never heard about multi-family "troops" like this before.
Is that really what it was? Do all California Quail (or other
quails) follow this type of rearing?

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Paul Stevens {apple|decwrl}!metaphor!pstevens
Metaphor Computer Systems pstevens at metaphor.com
Mountain View, CA

=====================

Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 10:52:37 -0400
From: Don Simonson, NIH NCRR VRP, 301-496-3347 <simonson_d%warp.dnet at DXI.NIH.GOV>

I saw a flock of California Quail in San Mateo County, near Pigeon Point,
last year, at a home right on the edge of the sea. There were a couple of
dozen young ones and four or five adults scrambling about near the deck,
in the ground cover, much as described in the previous posting on quail.

Locally, in our backyard in Darnestown, MD, 25 miles nw of Wash.DC, we
have had a single Northern Bobwhite in the yard for the past two weeks.
Yesterday we had very good views of it. This species is nearly extinct now
in our area, tho when I was a boy they were common in Battery Kemble park
within the city limits of Washington, and were abundant in the Maryland
countryside. When we moved into our place 14 years ago, it was a common
and very comical sight to see a whole covey of quail, including babies,
running along the edge of the property, weaving in and out among the
spruce trees.

Fellow birder Bob Hahn feels that the no-till agriculture adopted around
here is responsible for the demise of bobwhite. I know that the cornfield
behind us was sprayed with herbicides this spring even tho it was not
planted with crops. It is of course a wasteland, just poison ivy and low
briars growing. Only along the edges do I find birds.

Any chatters have a feeling about
this? Whatever the cause, the bobwhite are sorely missed!

==================

>From guttmanb at ELWHA.EVERGREEN.EDU Fri Jul 29 10:47:58 1994
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 13:35:57 -0700
From: Burton Guttman <guttmanb at ELWHA.EVERGREEN.EDU>
Reply to: "National Birding Hotline Cooperative (Chat Line)"
<BIRDCHAT at ARIZVM1.ccit.arizona.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list BIRDCHAT <BIRDCHAT at ARIZVM1.ccit.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Quail flocks and bobwhite

Joe Morlan wrote:

> Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the California Quail have
> been almost entirely eliminated from Golden Gate Park. The cause
> appears to be the establishment of Feral Cat feeding stations
> throughout the park.

This is astonishing, and dreadful, and frightening, and all those other
good adjectives! I didn't realize that animal-rights people were
concerned about feral cats, as well as people's pets. The feral animal
birth-control problem in this country is serious, and I'd be interested
to get statistics on it, if anyone knows more about this problem. Feral
cats are also incredibly dangerous; let me recommend the late Berton
Roueche's short novel _Feral_, which tells the story of a population of
these cats and their danger to people, let alone wildlife. (I made the
mistake of starting to read it late one evening and didn't get to sleep
until 2-3 in the morning; it's a spellbinder.) Also, there's a classic
study by Pearson on wild rodent populations being preyed upon by wild
carnivores, including feral cats; they are incredibly efficient predators.

If misguided people are actually going to support feral cat populations,
rather than trying to exterminate them, this is a problem that all
conservationists ought to be concerned about. As if we didn't already
have enough to worry about, this may be an issue that will require some
specific legislation. Is anyone else as frightened by Joe's comment as I
am? Does anyone else have specific information?

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 206-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 206-866-6794

======================

From: "Fred G. Thurber" <fgt at CADRE.COM>

Another problem with feeding feral cats is that they
are no longer subject to natural controls. Since food
supply is guaranteed by the mawkish, these feral cats can breed
uncontrollably.

Most animal-rights people are actually pets-rights or
cute-fuzzy-mammal's rights. They don't seem to understand
what cats do to wildlife.

The introduction of feline distemper has worked on some
islands where ferals cats have devastated sea bird populations,
and it might work in Golden Gate Park.

The introduction of a house cat predator, preferably avian, might be
effective. I wonder if great horned owls could be raised and trained
to eat house cats ;>)

====================

From: "Dale K. Thurber <MNHVZ095 at SIVM.SI.EDU>" <MNHVZ095 at SIVM.SI.EDU>
Subject: Feral cats

The problem of feral cat predation on birds is an excellent case study
on impacts of exotic predators on native fauna, but at a continental
rather than the classic insular scale. Following are excerpts from
a magazine article:

Stanley Temple and John Coleman estimated "in Wisconsin alone,
cats may account for some 19 million songbirds killed and 140,000
game birds each year."

"cats have contributed to the significant decline in Midwestern
grassland birds like the grasshopper and Le Conte sparrows (and) Western
meadowlarks".

"78 percent of the rural residents owned more than four free-roaming
cats. This gives some counties in the state a density of 57 cats per
square mile ... and 1,295 per square mile in Madison, Wisconsin."

In 1987, British researchers Peter Church and John Lawton estimated
that "England's five million house cat pets killed ... 20 million backyard
birds."

"The Wisconsin study revealed some 94 percent of cat owners wished to
attract song birds to their yard and feeders ... only 42 percent of cat
owners are willing to reduce the number of cats prowling their homes
and properties."

Desmond Morris notes that "well fed cats stay closer to home and barn
.. the urge to hunt is independent of the urge to eat. Cats hunt for
the sake of hunting."

"Putting a bell around a cat's neck or declawing it will not prevent it
from killing wild creatures ... wildlife does not associate the ringing of
a bell with a predator ... the bell doesn't ring (when a cat stalks) ...
declawed cats simply bat down their prey".

Sounds pretty serious to me! Wisconsin represents 1.84% of the
total land area of the contiguous United States. If the average rate
of birds killed by cats in the contiguous U.S. is one-half that
in Wisconsin, this extrapolation yeilds a VERY rough estimate of
one-half billion songbirds killed every year - hardly trivial! It would
be informative to see good estimates for many more states, together
with estimates of total bird population sizes.

It is discouraging to see so much energy and effort by the animal-
rights organizations ("pet-rights" as F. Thurber aptly put it)
center on such an extremely limited number of species. These are
generally people who care very much about animals and their welfare.
They have several objectives in common with the bird conservation community.
More dialogue and exchange of ideas would help some of them see the
bigger picture, and understand that the rights of feral exotic animals
should not necessarily include reproductive rights. Some of these
groups are, in fact, the principal advocates of spaying and neutering.

Obviously a central issue in the conservation of grassland birds is
the preservation of habitat. For birds to maintain stable populations,
habitats should include (among many factors): protection from destruction
of nests by farm machinery, protection from heavy predation by exotic
animals, protection from direct (toxic) and indirect (food base)
effects of pesticides, and plenty of appropriate nest sites.

=====================