MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois 
February, 1972 Vol. 15, No. 2 
1* Pheasant Popul ations and Land Use G. B. Joselyn 
The preceding report (MWRL 15(0:1) pointed out that substantial 
increases in the acreage of row crops on the Sibley Study Area over the 
past 9 years have not been followed by corresponding increases in the 
proportion of the area that is fall-plowed. Thus, although farm operators 
might wish to fall-plow most of the land to be cultivated during the 
following spring, the upper limit of plowing is evidently about 65 percent 
of the land area, the proportion each year being a function of moisture 
conditions during and after harvest and the date when frozen ground 
precludes further field work. 
Although pheasants are known to roost in corn stubble (particularly 
during periods of deep snow), it is also evident that in the absence of 
appreciable snow cover, hay and oats of good quality are preferred roosting 
cover. Over the past 10 years, the acreage of overwintering hay and oats 
stubble on the study area has declined steadily. During the winter of 
1962-63, 3,242 acres of hay and oats existed on the study area; durtng the 
winter of 1970-71, only 701 acres of hay and oats overwintered (a decline 
of 77 percent). Although the implications, for pheasant survival, of this 
relative scarcity of hay and oats during winter are unknown, the continued 
decline of this cover each year since 19^3 reflects the general decline in 
forage crops on the area. 
2. Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat G. B. Joselyn 
Data collected from the Sibley Study Area between 1963 and 1971 show 
that on a per-acre basis, managed seeded roadsides produced about three 
times the number of successful pheasant nests as unmanaged roadsides. It 
is therefore reasonable to infer that seedings over a large area could nearly 
triple pheasant production on roadsides. However, the question of whether 
seedings over a sizable area would have sufficient impact on the pheasant 
population to justify the cost of the seedings remains unanswered. In 
evaluating the potential of managed seeded roadsides as a management tool, 
the question is to what extent they could be expected to supplement other 
production—not whether they could by themselves produce enough birds to 
insure a hunteble population. 
At the beginning of this research project in 1962, 9*4 percent of the 
land on the Sibley Study Area was in hay; by 1971 this percentage had 
dwindled to 2.1 percent, with indications of further decreases in the 
