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Great job Gil! I can't wait to have time to get after some quail

Good report, Gil. Ever heard of a hognose being called a "spreading adder"? That's the only name I knew for them until I got to reading snake books as a young man.

SRH

Very cool snake! Good looking, and really nicely matched dogs too.

In my part of Alabama, we called the Hog Nosed Snake "Puff Adder" ( maybe "Puffing"). As a young man, I sometimes kept snakes as pets. The "Puff Adder" was a very interesting snake that employed unusual defensive techniques. Being harmless, it had to depend on subterfuge for it's defense. When threatened, it will "puff" up like the photo. A normally marked one( as opposed to the black one in the photo) has spots that look like eyes when puffed up, to mimic a larger snake. It is often said they look like a cobra, but it is unlikely that any threat would be familiar with cobras. If that doesn't work, they will roll over and play dead. If you roll them back to their stomach, they will immediately roll back over. If you persist in rolling them back to their stomach, they will defecate. The smell is so intense that I never tried to find out what they would do next.
Mike

Looks great Gil! Sorry to be way behind checking and responding. I have been quail hunting once with a friend (no photos unfortunately). We have some quail ordered for Thanksgiving so should get Sherwood back on them

Yep Stan, all my life they have been spreading adder.

Sounds like a great morning Gill. I didn't get to go as we are trying to finish up gathering soybeans and planting wheat.

Hopefully will get the dogs out by Thanksgiving weekend.

I'm no farmer. I do have a small farm up in middle GA though which many years ago had as good a quail population as anywhere I've ever hunted.

I've hunted that land all my life and my Grandfather kept it mostly in pasture for his cattle. When he passed my Grandmother leased the land out to the local county agent and his twin brother for row cropping.

The twin farmers planted soybeans and corn. After harvest, the land was left in stubble for the winter. Plenty of unharvested soybeans on the ground to feed the birds. The deer herd and the bobwhite population prospered. That decade was when the place was the best bird hunting I've ever experienced.

One year the farmers decided to double-crop the fields and after harvest the fields were turned under and wheat planted. That made plenty of deer feed I guess, but the quail disappeared. This was back in the '70s so before the general collapse of our southern bobwhite.

The reason for quoting WillieB's reference to gathering soybeans and planting wheat was it triggered my memory of the great period of bird hunting in my life. And the wheat crop which I blamed for the loss. I may or may not have been right about the ill effect of double cropping, but in my mind it was a clear case of cause and effect...Geo

I leave my stubble and crop residue all winter, Gil. Many of my neighbors harrow the fields clean immediately after harvest. I see no sense in that, and believe that leaving it matters to birds. My hunting landlords like me leaving it, too.

I do not, however, fault a farmer who needs to double crop by planting wheat immediately after fall harvest. But, it doesn't work well with my crop rotation, anyway.

Willieb, glad to know someone else in the world knows what a spreading adder is, besides me. (For a long while I actually thought the grown-ups were saying "spreadin' outer")

SRH

Geo, I think you have identified one of the problems for survival of the southern bobwhite. Lack of cover in general leaves them exposed to predators. Our soybeans are planted in the wheat crop stubble and soybeans stubble is left. Not that it provides much cover, but it does provide limited feeding.
Wheat is planted behind peanuts and grain sorghum.

Trying to make a living off the land and managing for quail is a difficult task. I try to balance the two as well as I can. Non productive areas are left for the birds, woods are burned on a three year rotation, nest predators are controlled where feasible and feed is spread on a two week rotation year round. While I will never have the numbers that the plantations in the area have, I have seen the population of wild birds increase over the last 10 years.

I know your post wasn't meant to be critical, I just wanted to provide some options that we can do to help gentleman bob.

Something is magical regarding quail numbers in the red hills of SW Georgia. It largely arises from the wealthy, usually Yankees, who spend millions collectively in managing hundreds of thousands of contiquous acres for the pursuit of a handful of feathers. Gil