In his teen years, when Joe Graves heard the unique call of quail on his family’s 800-acre farm in rural Virginia, he and his brother Clark would often go out with their dogs and hunt them.
But due to development and a shift in agricultural practices, the birds that once flourished on their farm in Halifax County and in the state have become harder to find. Now Virginia wildlife experts, hunters and landowners, including the Graves brothers — who are now in their 70s — are working to restore quail habitats in an effort to increase their population.
“We want to see quail be a part of the Virginia landscape, so we’re trying to create habitats that are critical for their survival,” said Graves.
Northern bobwhite quail, which are roughly the size of a softball, have short legs, short wings and don’t fly much. From afar they look like small, plump chickens that walk with their chests puffed out. Male quail typically have a white coloring on their neck area. Quail are best known for their unique sound — similar to a sharp whistle, which they make to communicate with each other and as a way to attract a mate.
Because they spend most of their life on the ground — much like pheasants and turkeys — quail need a mix of habitat: Honeysuckle and briers provide protection from predators, and they walk among shrubby patches, between weeds and grasses, pecking at seeds. In the fall and winter, quail typically live in flocks, or coveys, with about a dozen birds. They roost in a circle, shoulder-to-shoulder to stay warm, and face outward to watch for predators.
When a snake, hawk or raccoon approaches, a quail’s defense mechanism is to escape by leaping into the air, flying fast for a few seconds, though they don’t go far — about half the length of a football field. The longer they’re in the air, the more exposed they are to a predator.
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A female quail can produce up to 20 chicks a year, but they often live less than a year because many of them are killed due to predators, bad weather, accidents and hunters. John Morgan, director of the National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative at Clemson University, said quail have high reproductive rates and high mortality rates.
Quail habitats have been ruined by several factors, including encroaching development and farming practices that have changed because many landowners want neat, well-kept fields between planting seasons. Justin Folks, a wildlife biologist for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, said simply, “Quail like weeds and brush, and farmers don’t.”
Hudson Reese, 84, who owns 1,000 acres in Halifax County, said as a teen, he could regularly find eight coveys of quail on his farm, and now that’s down to one or two.
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“People have tractors, bush hogs and mowers now,” Reese said. “They want to keep their property looking like a golf course. You don’t have quail on a golf course.”
Over decades, a thick specialty grass called fescue has been more widely used on suburban lawns because it can tolerate a variety of climates and on farms because it can handle heavy grazing by cattle, but it’s terrible for quail. It’s too thick for quail to walk through, and quail chicks — which are the size of bumblebees at birth — often get stuck in the morning dew on fescue, sometimes getting so wet and cold that they die from hypothermia.
With the destruction of their habitats, the quail population in Virginia has plunged nearly 80 percent since the 1960s, and so too has interest in hunting them. Quail hunting was often called a “gentleman’s sport” because hunters used expensive dogs to find the birds and would dress up for the pursuit. Dogs sniff out the quail, then a hunter flushes out the bird before shooting it.
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Nationally, experts said quail were once in the mid-Atlantic region, Southeast and Midwest but are now considered one of the top birds suffering a major population decline.
“It’s amazing we have any because our environment of modern, manicured land doesn’t suit them,” Morgan said. “They’re just hanging on and slowly slipping away.”
While northern bobwhite quail are not considered an endangered species, they are a “species of concern,” according to Jay Howell, a wildlife biologist and small-game project leader who works on the quail recovery team for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. He is worried that continued population declines could make them even more rare.
Over the past 13 years, Virginia wildlife officials have made a concerted effort with hunters and more than 3,300 landowners to revive their population, and there are signs of success. Howell said the state’s quail population, though still low, is starting to reach equilibrium, and the rate of decline is slowing.
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Landowners are trying to improve quail habitat through controlled burns of forest areas. That process gets rid of pine needles, leaf debris and dead vegetation, leaving more easily walkable areas for quail. The more open ground encourages the growth of new plants and seeds and attracts insects — all of which in turn appeal to quail.
There are similar efforts in neighboring Maryland. Officials have conducted timber harvests and controlled burns in Pocomoke State Forest since 2013, and last year quail were heard for the first time in decades, according to a 2022 report by the National Bobwhite and Grasslands Initiative, a group that promotes quail conservation.
Overton McGehee, who owns 150 acres in Virginia’s Fluvanna County, is also working with state wildlife experts to bring quail back.
“Quail are one more of the species in Virginia that we don’t want to see disappear,” he said.
“They’re like a canary in a coal mine,” he said. “If we don’t have the right habitat for quail, then we probably don’t have the right habitat for a variety of birds and pollinators — from whippoorwills and goldfinches to monarch butterflies and bumble bees.”
For Reese, the return of quail has been rewarding.
“I’m almost as thrilled to see a quail now as I was to kill one years ago,” he said. “I don’t want to shoot them anymore — I just like to see them around and hear them whistle. It does me a lot of good to know there are still some around.”
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