Table 1. Phenology of roadside mowing, 1976. 
Vol. 19, No. 8 
Page 2 
Location 
Total Miles 
Percent of Total Miles Unmowed 
Prior to 1 August 
FCMU 
73 
64 
Ford County graded 
82 
21 
Anchor (McLean Co.) — 
73 
3 
Harwood (Champaign Co.)— 
166 
7 
Prairie Green (Iroquois Co.)- 
165 
13 
g 
— Future seedings are planned in these townships; farmers have not 
yet been asked to participate in the roadside program. 
Ecology and Management of Squirrels C. M. Nixon, 
S. P. Havera 
Wildlife biologists have often stated that winter is the bottleneck for 
wildlife populations. Severe winter weather combined with low food supplies 
can drastically reduce animal populations. Providing supplemental feed during 
the winter months is often mentioned as a possible means to counteract a low 
supply of wildlife food. One method of providing winter food is to leave 
unharvested grain in fields adjacent to good wildlife cover. 
Six rows of standing corn were left unharvested in two fields on the 
McLean County Conservation Area last winter. In one field, the rows of 
unharvested corn were adjacent to a mature oak-hickory forest; in the other 
field, the unharvested corn was next to a young oak-hickory forest. Four 
study plots were established in the standing corn rows in early September. 
The total number of ears, the number of ears above the ground, the number of 
ears on the ground, the number of ears eaten by wildlife, and the number of 
ears eaten by squirrels were monitored in these plots from September to early 
April. In addition to counting the ears, the outer 30 meters of the woods 
adjacent to the plots were searched for fresh corncobs that squirrels carried 
into woods. The study plots were visited after each snowfall to note which 
species of wildlife were utilizing the standing corn for food, cover, or both. 
Several trends were evident in the data collected. The number of ears 
of corn available to wildlife in all four plots gradually decreased from 
September to April. The total number of ears counted in September was 1,319; 
in November there were 1,111 ears counted; and in February and April the total 
counts were 1,028 and 89 I, respectively. A total of 428 or 32.5 percent of 
the ears present in September disappeared and were probably used by wildlife 
during the winter. The biggest decrease in the number of ears occurred 
