Forecast
Options | Our 2007 upland bird forecast for Iowa, Kansas and Missouri for pheasant and quail begins where we left off last season at the end of January 2007 in terms of carry over populations to spring breeding. The May 2007 indicator we seek to observe is the May rainfall during this first of the two month prime nesting and brooding periods as enhancement or degradation to nest and brood chick survival. May 2007 upland bird forecast indictors are a checkpoint along a contiguous year round upland bird observation effort. We left off at January 2007 with a distinction between pheasant and quail. Quail numbers were up across all of our upland bird regions in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa. Quail have prospered best during the driest spring nest and brood periods and are most degraded when combined May-June rainfall exceeds 10 inches. The lower the rainfall below 10 inches combine May and June seems to be better for quail. Pheasants prosper best with a dry spring, less than 10 inches combined May-June rainfall and with a wet summer creating better tall grass protective cover. Last year’s pheasant populations were depressed across all regions with the better hunts in the northwest and south central Kansas regions, acceptable to poor in north central and northeast Kansas and lower across the south central Iowa area. North Missouri, while having good compared to previous year pheasant numbers, is not a recommended pheasant hunt location. It remains that Missouri’s best years do not comparable favorably to Kansas in terms of overall pheasant hunt quality. May 2007 rainfall is the next forecast observation checkpoint along our year round upland bird observations comparing winter carry over to May being the prime nesting period and beginning of the brood period. We seek to identify where the most/least winter over birds have the best and worst spring nesting conditions. Caution as the reader must distinguish between nest and brood periods, a common misunderstanding when examining this data. Further, we have seen in the past that the previous seasons poor areas only require one good spring to make a significant rebound.
The above information is raw data that by itself is incomplete. An illustration of putting the above rainfall numbers into context is Washington Kansas with its 2.09 inches above average rainfall. That data makes it appear to be more adverse to nest and early brood survival than it actually is. When we examine May and June rainfall we attempt to put the variables of nature into manmade boxes in this case time parameters that are not equal from nature's perspective. The month of May rainfall has increasingly enhancing/degrading effects later than earlier in the month. Pheasant and quail will begin to lay eggs in early April. It will take several days to accumulate the 8 to 18 eggs per nest. Incubation time is 21 days. Adding all this up and assuming an April 5 first egg arrival day, 12 days to accumulate enough eggs in the nest to encourage the hen to sit, plus 21 incubation days means the earliest eggs will hatch around May 8. If this date is the leading edge of the bell curve of all nests, the bulk of hatches will occur later in May and re-nests in June. Taking the May 8 date above and comparing it to the actual by day rainfall for Washington, Kansas (see chart below) with its above average May rainfall shows that 3.29 inches of May's total rainfall occurred over May 5-6, ahead of that early nest egg hatch when the eggs were under the hen and protected. Taking that 3.29 inches out of the total leaves Washington, Kansas at 2.91 actual rainfall for the remainder of May when the chicks were in brood, or well below the average rainfall for Washington, Kansas of 4.2 inches. The summary is that even though Washington's total May rainfall appears to degrade spring time ground nesting bird nest and brood survival the contrary is true.
Review all rainfall data for the May 2007 upland bird forecast.
What does all this May rainfall data mean for the fall upland bird forecast in terms of hunt quality? Just one more forecast data check point along the way that when put into proper context gives indication where the better hunts will occur in terms of pheasant and quail population densities and habitat quality. As it stands right now most areas of adverse May rainfall had the bulk of that excess rain in the earlier part of May across many areas.
The May rainfall by itself is insufficient to draw a final upland forecast conclusion. It is when the May rainfall and that of June is combined do we have better raw data to put into context of comparing to the bulk of the brood period as a contributing indicator (forecast) of hunt quality to come.
Right now we are ok, not great, in more areas than initial review of the raw May rainfall indicates.
For quail central Missouri north through our south central and eastern Iowa lease land locations at this point faired well. For pheasants north central, north west and south central Kansas at this point given good summer rains for tall grass development pose to be the best hunts. And, as always, with our multiple upland bird regions we will have good to better hunts in one or more regions as never have all regions been degraded or enhanced through all environmental influencing factors equally every year.
See rain effects for the Kansas, Missouri and Iowa upland bird forecast. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
