MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Illinois Federal Aid Projects W-66-P., W-37**R, and W-u°-R 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Eva Steger, Editors 
NAHM HISTORY SURVEY 
DEC 31 1980 
umm 
Urbana, Illinois 
December, 1930 
Vol. 23, Mo. 12 
Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat - W-GG-R 
R. E. Warner 
In 1973 the Department of Transportation seeded approximately 1 mile of 
brome-alfalfa and 1.2 miles of fescue mix along the newly constructed FAI 55 
near 6 Ode it Livingston County. The purpose of this effort was to provide for 
controlled comparison of nesting by pheasants and ground nesting songbirds 
a 
on the 2 types of seedings. 
A total of 10 plots (6 fescue mix and 4 brome-alfalfa) totaling 6 acres 
have been searched ?wlce per sum^r since 1977- Detai Is of the study were noted 
In MWRL 21(12)*! As a result of winter storm-related mortality, too few 
pheasant 2 nests have been found on the Odell plots to afford tenable conclusions. 
Forty-eight songbird nests, however, have been found 
i)B nests were located in brome-alfalfa vegetation. Thus, 
primarily red-winged b lackbi rds—have nested significantly 
(p<.001) in fescue-mix plots than in brome-alfalfa. 
since 1977; 33 of the 
to date, songbirds— 
less frequently 
Ecology and Management of Squirrels - W-66-R 
C. M. Nixon, 
L. P. Hansen 
Both fox and gray squirrels are best adapted to old-growth hardwood forests 
with a high percentage of oaks and hickories. Gray squirrels, and to some 
extent fox squirrels! fluctuate in density in response to the amount of storable 
(nuts and seeds that will keep fresh when buried or cached by squirrels) tree 
seed produced each fall. The virgin hardwoods that formerly covered . 
Illinois produced at least 10 times more seed per unit of area than the typical 
hardwood stand today. Virgin upland mixed-hardwoods produced an estimated 
38 000 to 148,000 bushels of storable tree seed (h.ckor es, walnuts, and acorns) 
per square mile in contrast to an average estimated yield per square mile of 
1,700 bushels from a second-growth mixed upland forest. 
Sauirrel response to this abundance of food was reflected in the published 
accounts of squirrel numbers and crop depredations. F « rl * ' 
there were at least 1 billion gray squirrels east of the Mississippi in 1-00. 
