When you increase prey bird population vastly mother nature makes changes to preditors at the same time. If I had not increased the Dove population by 20 fold or the quail population by 10 fold the hawk population would have never been a factor or even noticed. But if you open a deli and stock it with fresh meats do nt be surprised if someone comes in and eats some of it.
I do not care about the hawks that much when it comes to doves but I do for quail. I have taken some steps to make their impact as minimal as possible for the quail. The easiest thing to do was to removbe several trees that they like to rest in and watch for the quail to come and go form roost to feeding areas. There are no close by convient perches for the hawks to pounch from. If you do not think that the hawks are killing my doves I can show you where doves have been killed every day. But one out of hundreds is no big deal, even to the doves.
I think that my real problem that is impacting my quail is turkeys. Turkeys impact quail nesting very heavily around my farm and I failed to reduce the turkey population last year. I know of one quail nest that they destroyed for certain and suspect several more.
That will not happen this year. In fact I want to make it so hot for the turkeys that they come out undergound to keep out of my sight. I hope that reducing the population of the turkeys several dozen this year and next spring will reduce their effect on the quail.
Feral cats run out of spare lives very quickly on my farm. About 2750 fps fast.
The observation about the fence row to fence row farming is fair to note. It cetrainly eliminated a lot of nesting, feeding and rest areas for game birds. I miss hedge rows, ditch banks with decent cover and weed patches. But many farmers need every acre that they can plant just to make a living and I do not dismiss thier needs over mine. Still it is a shame.
