Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn., Dave Orrick column

Source: Pioneer Press, St.迷你倉價錢 Paul, Minn.Aug. 17--RICE COUNTY, Minn. -- At 6:41 a.m., Nicole Davros rolled down the windows and eased down on the gas pedal of her Toyota Tundra, which rolled up to 15 mph on a gravel road lined by cornfields.Twenty-five miles to go.Her eyes scanned the road ahead and the ditches to the side, her head bobbing occasionally to peer down breaks in the crop walls on either side of us.We were looking for animals but saw none on this first stretch.Twenty-four miles to go.So began Route 30 of the 2013 Roadside Wildlife Survey, an annual affair the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has been doing since 1955.The unceremonious start to the run belied its significance; the results of this and 170 other 25-mile routes through the state's farmland will be scrutinized by tens of thousands of hunters as they plan their forays afield.Known as the "roadside pheasant count," the surveys provide an index, useful for comparing trends over years, to a number of animals, but most notably ring-necked pheasants.Results from the single data sheet of each of the 152 survey routes that are considered within the pheasant's range of the southern half of the state will be used to produce a pheasant-hunting prospects map next month.The color-coded map, intentionally not detailed with specific geographic features for reasons I'll soon explain, will feature blobs of color gradients, each color forecasting a different level of optimism, or pessimism, for the hunters who will scrutinize them, trying to glean whether his or her favored hunting ground is inside or outside the blob that portends "good" or "fair" flushing birds.The studying of the maps is an understandable exercise -- a tradition even -- but Davros cautions that the roadside surveys are best taken en masse, and too much stock should not be placed on any one route. (Yes, some hunters do request the data from individual routes and the exact routes themselves.)"You do this route 10 times and you'regoing to get 10 different results," she said, easing off the pedal to eyeball (binoculars aren't allowed for the initial spotting of wildlife) an opening in a field. "If the two big broods came out from the field a minute after you drove by, that's a different result from if they walked out a minute earlier and you saw them."This is why the DNR doesn't attempt to pin down "hot spots."The truck ambled, straddling the apex of the pitched road, which, like most of the route, would be traffic free. The speed seemed to be just enough to kick up the odd pebble into the wheel well but not too much as to cause a loud smack. Pinnnggg!The DNR has a series of restrictions on conditions under which the routes may be run: Less than 60 percent cloud cover, winds below 10 mph, a good dew on the ground and vehicle speeds between 15 and 20 mph. The idea is that those are good conditions to see wildlife, and they're consistent, so results of several years -- and from many different routes -- can be compared.The effort, conducted almost entirely by DNR wildlife managers and conservation officers, is similar to the ruffed grouse drumming count surveys conducted each spring. The indices do a poor job of guessing populations, but they tend to be a good predictor of general bird abundance, at least when compared to how many birds hunters will kill in a season when compared to the previous year.If Davros' sources are any indicator, pheasant hunters will take fewer birds this fall than last year.The surveys aren't completed yet, but Davros, who is in her first year overseeing the program, thinks she has a pretty good sense, based on weather and early reports from the field, including anecdotal reports thro迷你倉庫ghout the late spring and first half of summer."I expect the numbers will be down statewide, but I think it's going to be really patchy," said Davros, whose formal title is upland game project manager within the farmland wildlife populations and research group.It's a long title, but we were in no hurry. Pinnnggg.It's not just about pheasants. Davros tallies other game species. Mourning doves are the most prolific, cottontails are spotted mainly in clover-carpeted homesteads wepass by, two buck whitetails are logged, and the jackrabbit and sandhill crane fields remain blank on her sheet. She also notes noteworthy non-game animals such as raptors -- mostly red-tailed hawks -- and cats outside of yards. (The DNR is considering making cats a formal entry to get a handle on how the population might be changing.)"I think it's going to be really patchy," Davros said, continuing her pheasant prognostication. "If birds do well, I think it will be in the central part of the state."The two most significant factors determining how the ring-necked pheasant fares in Minnesota are the availability of habitat and the weather. Habitat is shrinking, and weather is, of course, variable.Following a cold winter in 2010-2011, a cold and wet spring is believed to have caused many of the newly hatched birds, which are not native to North America, to perish. Hunters had it rough that fall. The winter of 2011-2012 was nonexistent, allowing numbers to increase, according to the roadside survey and some reports from hunters.This past winter was legit, and the spring in many parts of the state was downright wintry, which could have caused chicks and perhaps even adult pheasants to die, although opinions on that vary.Davros, an Illinois native whose Ph.D. research included studying warblers that delayed nesting during a stretch of inclement weather, said she's seen some evidence that pheasant hens might have delayed nesting, a strategy that could lead to larger broods -- but smaller birds for so late in the year."Just the other day near Redwood Falls I saw a brood of chicks that was 2 to 3 weeks old," said Davros, a biologist who only recently took up pheasant hunting. "We tend to think of these birds as basing their mating on photoperiod (amount of daylight), but sometimes, these birds just realize, 'Hmm, no, it's not right yet.' And they hold off."A late-nesting strategy might prove effective if winter arrives gently and young-of-the-year birds have had time to beef up, but it could prove problematic if large numbers of flightless birds are in the fields now. Earlier this month, a number of public lands were opened to commercial mowing in an attempt to lessen the impact of a winterkill of alfalfa used to feed livestock.When the day began, Davros said, "I'm hoping you'll be my good luck charm, and we'll see more pheasants than I expect."I rarely bring such fortune, I cautioned, and such was the case on this day. We saw one brook of seven chicks she estimated to be 8 weeks old. Along a route that was mostly corn and soybeans, these birds were in the best patch of habitat we saw, a hilly prairie pocked with enough boulders to discourage the plow, at least for this season.We finished the route and doubled back, this time driving normally, kicking up a trail of dust and, between two stands of tasseled corn we had passed moments before, a hen and rooster pheasant.They would not be counted in the survey, but they were there.Dave Orrick can be reached at 651-228-5512. Follow him at twitter.com/OutdoorsNow.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at .twincities.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存