A^V , > & 
MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
T. G. Scott and Wendy Patton, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois 
October, 1962 
Vol. 5, No. 9’’ 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use 
J. E. Warnock, G. B. Joselyn 
Studies of the nesting ecology of pheasants on the Sibley area indicated that 
the number of established nests in unharvested hayfields (199.8 per 100 acres) was 
27.9 percent higher than in harvested hayfields (156.2 per 100 acres) during the 
years 1957-62. Unharvested hayfields yielded 75.7 hatched pheasant nests per 100 
acres compared to 29.4 hatched nests per 100 acres in harvested (mowed) hayfields. 
Thus, unharvested hay produced 46.3 (158 percent) more hatched nests per 100 acres 
of cover than harvested hay. In unharvested hayfields 37.9 percent of the estab¬ 
lished nests hatched compared to only 18.8 percent in harvested hayfields. 
2. Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat D. E. Newman 
Pheasants exhibited different seasonal timing in their establishment of nests 
in seeded and control plots along 7 miles of roadway being experimentally managed 
to provide nesting cover for pheasants. The seasonal progression of nest establish¬ 
ment indicates that pheasants utilized seeded plots for nesting during a longer 
period of time than they utilized control plots; the midpoint of nest establishment 
in test plots occurred about 3 weeks after the midpoint of nest establishment in 
control plots. Pheasants established nests in control plots during a period of 
about 13 weeks, with the midpoint occurring on May 28. In contrast, nest establish¬ 
ment in test plots spanned a period of about 17 weeks, with the midpoint occurring 
on June 16. 
The overall peak of nest establishment, which occurred during June on the 
roadsides (Table 1), may be partially attributed to at least two factors? (l) 
The newly seeded portions of the test plots did not provide adequate nesting cover 
until June. (2) Roadsides may have become sites for renesting efforts by pheasants 
whose early nests were disrupted. The second factor would be particularly appli¬ 
cable to hens that established nests in hayfields which are usually mowed during 
early June. 
JAN *6 1963 
NATURAL 
HISTORY SURV r Y 
LIBRARY 
