\s~Dod 4s 
NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 
SEP 19 1969 
5 
LIBRARY 
MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
Urbana, 111inois 
July, 1969 
Vol. 12, No. 7 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use 
S. L. Etter, R. E. Greenberg 
During the summer of I 968 , several hen pheasants were captured and 
equipped with miniature radio transmitters. Only one of these hens brought 
off her brood successfully. She was tracked for 12 weeks to make a pilot 
study of brood movements, using radiotelemetry. 
The hen was netted on July 8 while she was incubating a clutch of 10 
eggs on an unmowed roadside. Nine of the eggs hatched on July 11 and the 
hen moved her brood about 150 yards south into a cornfield. Her location 
was monitored several times daily during July and August, and more frequently 
during September. There was little day-to-day movement during the 12-week 
tracking period. The hen was never found more than 0.5 mile from her nest. 
Her daily movements rarely exceeded 0.25 mile and were often less than 
220 yards, especially if she was near a field edge. 
2. Manipu1 ation of Pheasant Habitat G. B. Joselyn 
On July 10, the 62-8 miles of roadside on the Ford County Management 
Unit that were seeded to a brome-alfalfa mixture last summer were checked 
to determine the success of the seedings. Stops were made at least once 
within each quarter mile of roadside where seedings had been made. The 
amount of brome and alfalfa present on the roadside at each stop was placed 
in one of three categories: (1) fair to good, (2) questionable, (3) poor to 
unacceptable. 
Of the 62.8 miles checked, 53-8 (86 percent) were tentatively judged 
to contain sufficiently good stands of brome/alfalfa to preclude reseeding. 
(Nearly 3$ miles of roadside, 57 percent, were judged to have "fair to 
good" alfalfa growth, constituting greater success with the legume than 
had been indicated by spot checks early last spring.) 
Success of the seedings on approximately 2-5 miles (4 percent) of road¬ 
side was considered questionable at this time, and 6.5 miles (about 10 per¬ 
cent) were judged to need reseeding. Two of the 6.5 miles were graded as 
part of a road maintenance project after the seedings were made, and will be 
reseeded this August. 
It should be stressed that the criteria used to categorize the status 
of the seedings at this time may prove to be in error. An accurate assessment 
