228 



Ring-necked Pheasant 



Ring-necked pheasants occur along the Tongue River and Fourmlle 

 Creek. A pheasant crowing count was run along the Tongue River 

 south of Birney. Stops 6-12 were located in the Kirby area. 

 Crowing counts for these stops averaged 2.2 per stop in 1980 and 

 3.1 per stop in 198I. The low count in 198O was probably due to 

 the foggy weather during the count. The I981 count was lower 

 than the count on the Birney area. One brood with 9 young was seen 

 in 1981 in sagebrush habitat about 1/4 mile from the river. 



Turkey 



Seven groups of turkeys were observed in the study area (Figure 104). 

 A brood with 5 young was observed in 198O and a combined brood 

 with 3 hens and about 20 young was observed in 198I. Turkeys were 

 hard to observe, preferring ponderosa pine habitats. No turkeys 

 were observed during the winter of 198O-81, but landowners described 

 two flocks, totaling about 76 turkeys which wintered on Fourmlle 

 Creek during the severe winter of 1978-79. 



Waterfowl 



Nine species of waterfowl were observed on the study area (Table 129). 

 Three of these were confirmed or suspected breeders. Mallard (^ 

 broods were observed on the lower end of Canyon Creek near the ^ 

 Tongue River, and in several ponds in the western half of the 

 study area. Migrants were observed along the river and on most 

 of the ponds which held water. 



Other Possible Game Birds 



Several landowners commented that Hungarian partridge were formerly 

 fairly common in the western portion of the study area. One land- 

 owner had also observed sage grouse on the upper end of Post 

 Creek. Ruffed grouse have been sighted on the Rosebud Battlefield 

 Just a few miles west of the study area. Landowners have seen 

 ruffed grouse on a ridge Just on the northwestern edge of the 

 study area. Stands of aspen, thick ponderosa pine timber, and 

 deciduous shrub thickets favored by ruffed grouse are only widely 

 scattered throughout the western half of the study area, providing 

 only marginal habitat for them. 



Songbirds 



One hundred and seven species of birds, including game birds, were 

 observed on the study area (Table 129). Eighty-nine of these 

 were suspected or confirmed breeders on the study area. This list 

 is probably not complete. 



The songbird census road route (Figure 105) was run three times 

 In 1980, but only once in I98I due to bad weather, so the results 

 were combined. Vegetation along the route was 68$ sage-grassland, 

 22$ ponderosa pine and Juniper, and 10$ riparian. A total 



C 



