July | 2018 | Birds and Buds

Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus). Photo by Baxter Beamer.

Northern Bobwhite

Colinus virginianus

Family: Odontophoridae

Other common names: Bobwhite Quail, Virginia Quail

Distinguishing Features/Description

Northern bobwhites are a small, round bodied species of quail with short legs and tails. Their bodies are finely patterned with bold rufous, brown, black and white markings. Most bobwhite populations have a striped white and black head, with a white throat, dark eye stripe, white supercilium and dark crown. The only exception to this head coloration is the endangered subspecies masked bobwhite (C. v. ridgwayi) of southern Arizona, which has an entirely black head.

The coloration of male northern bobwhites varies significantly across their range, while females look similar. Eastern males have rich rufous colored chests and flanks and a light brown back. Males from the Southeastern U. S. are much darker overall, with a nearly black chest and very little rufous on the flanks. Western birds are paler, with some light rufous underneath and a pale gray back.

Northern bobwhites are the only quail throughout the eastern part of their range; however, they do overlap with scaled and Gambel’s quail in the West. Where they overlap with other quail species, bobwhites can be easily identified by their smaller size and brighter coloration, including their rufous chest and striped head.

Scaled Quail (Callipepla squamata)

Distribution and Habitat

Northern bobwhites occur naturally in most of the eastern United States, roughly from Massachusetts to South Dakota and south through Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas to Florida. They also can be found on many of the Caribbean Islands and south through Mexico to Guatemala. Bobwhites have also been introduced to other parts of the world — including the Pacific Northwest and Europe — as a game bird.

In Virginia, northern bobwhites can be found statewide, although in many areas native populations have declined precipitously since the 1970s. Bobwhites are fairly rare in the Shenandoah Valley, becoming increasingly frequent as you travel east through the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. There are quite a few around Scottsville in eastern Albemarle, although some of these birds are likely hunting releases.

Northern bobwhites need early successional habitats — various natural grasslands and savannas — to do well, and the decline of these habitats in Virginia is probably a large cause of their decline. These kinds of prairies and open forests are maintained by disturbances, such as clear cutting or burning. Two plant communities that bobwhites rely on in Virginia are Piedmont prairie and loblolly pine savanna. Difficult Creek Natural Area and Piney Grove Preserve are two preserves in Virginia that exemplify these two plant communities respectively.

Piedmont prairies are a particularly diverse form of natural grassland, which makes them great habitat for bobwhites. The rich assemblage of flora that can be found in these disturbed habitats is often dominated by many species of grasses, legumes and asters. Since there are so many species of native plants, there are also many insects and seeds for the bobwhites to eat. The dense herb layer also provides cover from predators.

The diversity of flowering plants found in good bobwhite habitat also makes great habitat for pollinators. Many species of native butterflies, bees and wasps would also benefit from the restoration of natural grasslands.

Piedmont Prairie at Difficult Creek Natural Area Preserve

Ecology and Life History

Bobwhites feed mostly on seeds and nuts in the fall and winter, but in the summer when they are raising chicks, they also eat many insects. Preferred seed sources include asters, legumes, grasses, pines and oaks.

Like other quail species, bobwhites live in groups — called coveys — of 3-20 birds. Coveys feed and sleep together, and they get along peacefully for most of the year, except during the breeding season when males fight for mates.

Nests are a shallow, grass lined scrape on the ground. Bobwhites often weave grasses over the nest into a canopy, forming a dome like shape. Typically, there is only one brood per season, but up to three have been recorded. Clutch size is large, usually more than 10 eggs. The young fledge after two weeks.

Notes

As mentioned above, northern bobwhites used to be a common bird in the eastern United States, but their populations have declined by 85% in the past 40 years, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. The IUCN Red List currently considers them “near threatened”. These declines have been attributed to widespread loss of the early successional habitat that bobwhites favor to development, forest succession, and more land intensive farming practices. Historically, the Piedmont of Virginia held extensive natural grasslands. What little remain today are widely scattered and fragmented. Bobwhites are only one of the many animals and plant species that rely on these incredibly biodiverse habitats.

This past weekend my family and I made our now annual trip to the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area in West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest. I first heard about Cranberry Glades several years ago — from an orchid book by Stanley Bentley called Native Orchids of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and a blog I read called floraofohio.blogspot.com by Andrew Gibson — and we have gone every year since then.

Cranberry Glades is a series of large, high elevation peat bogs at around 3400 feet, which contains many plants typically found in more northern regions. Some of these plants are relicts of the last Ice Age, surviving only in this high montane valley and no where else in the Southern Appalachians. Many species of native orchid can also be found in and around the glades, including swamp pink, rose pogonia, large purple fringed orchid, ragged fringed orchid, and their hybrid, Keenan’s fringed orchid.

The air felt warm and fresh as we got out of the car, a noticeable difference from the mugginess of the lower elevations we had left behind. We walked onto the half mile boardwalk that traverses part of Round and Flag Glades. Near the parking lot, the canopy was closed with red spruce, eastern hemlock, yellow birch and black birch. Thickets of speckled alder grew along the stream. The ground was slightly swampy, covered in dense skunk cabbage and meadow rue growing above clumps of Sphagnum moss. The canopy opened up around us as the boardwalk led out into the bog. Dense tussocks of Sphagnum carpeted the ground, with both small and large cranberries growing out of them in clumps. It was amazing to think of the many feet of dead Sphagnum and other plant materials below us — called peat— holding water like a gigantic sponge. Bog-rosemary, one of the plants reaching the southernmost limit of its range at Cranberry Glades, grew along the edges of the boardwalk. Small sprigs of a chokeberry species waved in the air a couple feet off the ground. Soon the tiny, delicate pink flowers of grass pinks and rose pogonias began to appear amid the tangle of cranberry vines.

Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides). Unfortunately none of the pogonia plants were close enough to the boardwalk to photograph this year, so this is a photo of a plant I am growing at home.

We rounded a bend into a second glade, this one filled with clumps of giant cinnamon fern growing out of the Sphagnum. Grass pinks bloomed beneath the ferns outstretched fronds. As I was photographing a round leaved sundew, I heard a group of people come up behind us, eagerly searching for one of the insect-eating sundews. They had clearly heard about them but couldn’t find any. I thought this was funny because sundews are all over the ground there, but they are so tiny that if you don’t bend down and look closely you can’t see them. I pointed out sundews and the also carnivorous purple pitcher plants to the group and they were very grateful.

Grass Pink (Calopogon tuberosus)

After lunch we decided to walk the cowpasture trail, which goes all the way around the glades through spruce woodlands and open, wet clearings. In past years, we had found several species of orchids along it.

The wide, level cowpasture trail led into the woods from the road. Magnolia and Canada warblers sang from the spruce, hemlock and rhododendron that lined the path. I heard the slow, nasal call of a red-breasted nuthatch. Not long after the start of the trail, the forest opened up into a large mountain meadow. Meadowsweets and goldenrods grew thickly in the drier areas, while the wet seep in the center of the clearing was filled with rushes and sedges. A pair of mating eastern red damsels perched briefly in front of me.

Back in the forest, mountain wood sorrel and various northern clubhouses appeared along the edges of the trail. We arrived at a smaller clearing, and the wet ditch beside the trail exploded with vegetation. Sorting carefully through the lush foliage, I was able to find the inconspicuous green flower stalk of a northern tubercled orchid. It became apparent there were many more in this small ditch, the only place I have ever seen them.

Northern Tubercled Orchid (Platanthera flava var. herbolia)

We continued hiking down the trail, listening to the songs of breeding birds that are rare in Virginia, such as hermit thrushes and several species of warblers. I saw some of the wide, round leaves of pad-leaved orchid growing on a dirt bank under hemlocks, but unfortunately there were no flowers. In another clearing I found one blooming ragged fringed orchid, along with one that had been eaten by a deer.

Ragged Fringed Orchid (Platanthera lacera)

Some time later we emerged back onto the road. As we were walking towards our car, a pick up truck pulled up and a man got out and began to inspect the road bank. My mom, always on the look out for helpful local knowledge, asked him what he was looking for. He showed us a patch of ragged fringed orchid further up the road that we probably would have missed.

Ragged Fringed Orchid (Platanthera lacera)

He told us he’d met Stanley Bentley, the author of the book from which I learned about Cranberry Glades in the first place, and about the orchids that grew right in his back yard. In the end, he gave us directions to his “secret spot” for a patch of about 40 large purple fringed orchids, although he warned us they were “a little spent.” This information was especially exciting because I had searched for this species every time we came, but had never found it.

After a bit of a treasure hunt trying to follow his directions, we thought we found the spot and parked. We climbed over a guard rail and down the slope into a marsh. Sphagnum grew on the ground, and there were even a few cattails. Stunted red spruce trees grew around the edges. The first large purple fringed orchids we found were two old withered flower stalks, almost completely obscured by a bush. I was getting worried as I walked towards the other end of the marsh. Where were the orchids? Luckily it turned out they were all clustered at the other end. Many even still had very good looking flowers.