Photo by Ruthie Kansas.
In theory, bobwhites are found all over West Virginia.
In reality, I’ve never seen a wild one here.
They used to be fairly common in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century.
Which was well before my time.
These birds prefer cultivated land with brushy areas between fields.
That’s not what West Virginia looks like now.
Interesting that the bobwhite has crashed while the California quail (really cute animals due to the topnot) have flourished. To me this is one of the big riddles of biogeography. Why do some species boom in proximity to humans while other species crash?
They actually do flourish in human habitats. It’s just in my area, the land isn’t as agricultural as it once was, which is better for wild turkeys and ruffed grouse than bobwhites and pheasants.
One of the major differences is that AgBiz doesn’t like hedgerows–they get in the way of the big equipment and ‘waste’ growing space. Bobwhites thrive in agriculture environments where hedgerows are maintained–an edge environment. This is yet another good reason to reinstate the practice.