MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
T. G. Scott and Wendy Patton, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois 
October, 1961 
Vol. 4, No. 10 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use R. F. Labisky, S. H. Mann 
Agricultural trends on the 23,200-acre Sibley study area have been toward pro¬ 
gressively more acres of row crops (corn and soy beans) and correspondingly fewer 
acres of small grains and forage crops (tame hayfields and pastures). Pheasants 
have demonstrated (l) the ability to shift their nesting effort among the different 
cover types (particularly between small grains and tame hayfields) under the 
changing land-use program, and (2) the ability to concentrate nesting effort to 
compensate for the decline in the quantity and quality of nesting cover without 
sacrificing a high degree of hatching success. 
In 1961, pheasants established 279.5 nests per 100 acres of hayfield cover and 
29.7 per cent of these nests hatched. Densities of nests established in hayfields 
were 67.3, 117.4, 129.0 and 214.5 nests per 100 acres in 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960, 
respectively. The percentage comparison of proportions of cover types and associated 
production of hatched nests for the 5 years, 1957-61, are presented in tables 1 and 
2. The decline in the acreage of row crops and increase in the acreage of small 
grains in 1961 was the result of participation by farmers in the Federal feed-grain 
program. 
Table 1. --Percentage comparison of the proportions of cover types on the 
Sibley study area, 1957-61. Data were collected from 100 randomly selected 10-acre 
plots comprising a 4.3 per cent sample of the 23,200-acre area. 
Percentage of Total Cover 
Cover Types 
1957 
1958 
1959 
1960 
1961 
5-Year 
Average 
Row Crops 
48.0-"- 
54 1 4 
60.6 
64.0 
58.8 
57.2 
Small Grains 
22.4 
14.5 
17.2 
10.0 
18.5 
16.5 
Hayfields (tame) 
8.6 
15.9 
8.2 
8.3 
8.3 
9.9 
Pastures 
(tame and wild) 
12.5 
6.1 
4.8 
8.5 
5.3 
7,4 
Strip-Cover 
4.6 
4.8 
4.7 
4,8 
4.7 
4.7 
Non-Agricultural 
3.9 
4.5 
4.6 
4,5 
4.4 
4.4 
Total 
100.0 
100.2 
100.1 
100.1 
100.0 
100.1 
Actual sample plot acreages can be obtained by removing decimal points. 
