North American Northern Bobwhite Habitats Brown, Buff, White Year-Round

Summary: North American northern bobwhite habitats give brown, buff, white native northern bobwhites camouflaged cover in brushy, dewy, grassy niches year-round.

Three states (Georgia, 1970; Missouri, 2007; Tennessee, 1987) recognize the North American northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) as their state game bird; female (left) and male (right) northern bobwhite; Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006: Steve Maslowski/US Fish and Wildlife Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American northern bobwhite habitats appeal to cultivators through insect-, snail- and spider-heavy diets, to hunters through covey flushes and to naturalists through year-round distribution ranges from Canada southward down into Mexico.

Northern bobwhites bear the common names bobwhite quail and Virginia quail and the scientific name Colinus virginianus (Virginia partridge) for bobwhite and whistling quail family membership. Agricultural herbicides, habitat fragmentation, hunting mortalities, plantation monoculture and weather extremes challenge bobwhites, described in 1758 by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778). The round-bodied, round-winged, short-legged, short-tailed, small-headed, thick-billed game bird constructs 10- to 12-member communal life styles in Canada, Caribbean island countries, Mexico and the United States. Coveys draw together parents, offspring and unsuccessful breeding pairs onto 0.04- to 0.23-square-mile (0.1- to 0.6-square-kilometer) ranges up to 8,202.1 feet (2,500 meters) above sea level.

Six-year lifespans expect grasslands and pine forests in southern North America, hardwood forests in eastern and northern North America and shrubby savannahs in southwestern North America.

January through October furnish opportunities for brooding one 7- to 28-egg clutch, with one to two more following a first brood lost to predation or weather.

Parents-to-be gather dead plants, especially broomsedge, into lining, and living plants as cover, for saucer-shaped, softball-sized hollows in the ground within low cover near open spaces. Their nest-building happens over four hours to two to six days for dull to cream white, smooth, somewhat glossy, 1.18- by 0.95-inch (30- by 24-millimeter) eggs. Mothers-to-be then issue one egg per day over the course of seven to 28 days and involve their mates in the subsequent 22- to 24-day incubations.

Adult-preying bobcats, eagles, falcons, foxes and hawks and egg-seeking chipmunks, crows, opossums, raccoons, rats, ravens, skunks, snakes, squirrels and weasels jeopardize North American northern bobwhite habitats.

Downy, open-eyed nestlings know blackish eye- to nape-streaks, blackish-buff-chestnut flanks, chestnut-red backs, crowns and napes, creamy-buff-striped backs, grayish-buff undersides, rufous-buff foreheads and yellowish-buff sides of heads.

Almost immediately functional buffy-pink bills, feet and legs launch northern bobwhite nestlings from day-long hatchling stages to flying within 14 days and self-feeding within 21 days. The march from insect-only diets to bud-, fruit-, grain-, insect-, leaf-, legume-, nut-, seed-, snail- and spider-filled regimes marks 60-day moves from juvenile into mature stages. Bayberry, clover, corn, cowpea, flowering dogwood, gallberry, grape, hackberry, mesquite, milkpea, oak, panicgrass, partridge pea, persimmon, pine, plum, redbay, skunk daisy, sorghum and sweetgum nourish adults.

North American northern bobwhite habitats optimally offer mean summer rainfall above 7.87 inches (20 centimeters) and winter temperatures above 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 degrees Celsius).

Dew-rich brushy cover 3 to 10 yards (2.74 to 9.14 meters) in diameter and 100 to 200 yards (91.33 to 182.88 meters) apart provides hideaway homes.

Brush 3 to 10 feet (91.44 to 304.8 centimeters) high and groundcover 8 to 24 inches (20.32 to 60.96 centimeters) tall qualify as optimal camouflage vegetation. Habitats buff like female eyelines and throats, white like male eyelines and throats and white-marked chestnut-brown like female and male bodies rarely reveal resident northern bobwhites. Brief, rapid-started, rapid-stopped, startling glides by 6-ounce (170.09-gram), 8- to 10-inch (20.32- to 25.4-centimeter) bodies with 11- to 14-inch (27.94- to 35.56-centimeter) wingspans suggest adult presences.

The vocalizations Errrk, Hoy hoypoo koilee, Pitou took and Tirree toil-ick-ick-ick tell of birds, coveys, mates, and mammals and reptiles in North American northern bobwhite habitats.

northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) egg from collection of French ornithologist Jacques Perrin de Brichambaut (Oct. 18, 1920-March 17, 2007) in Muséum de Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, southwestern France; Sunday, Sep. 4, 2011: Didier Descouens, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

female (left) and male (right) northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus); Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006: Steve Maslowski/US Fish and Wildlife Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/6862204457

northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) egg from collection of French ornithologist Jacques Perrin de Brichambaut (Oct. 18, 1920-March 17, 2007) in Muséum de Toulouse (Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de la ville de Toulouse, MHNT), Jardin des Plantes de Toulouse, quartier de Busca-Montplaisir, Toulouse center, Haute-Garonne department, Occitania region, southwest France; Sunday, Sep. 4, 2011: Didier Descouens, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colin_de_Virginie_MHNT.jpg

For further information:

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