MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of 
Glen 
Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois 
October, 1971 Vol. 14, No. 10 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use G. B. Joselyn 
Available pheasant nesting cover on the 23,200-acre Sibley Study 
Area continued to diminish in 1971* Excluding row crops (corn and 
soybeans), pheasant nesting cover on the area consists of hay (harvested 
and unharvested), hay pasture (cattle and hog), small grains (mostly 
oats), and permanent cover (roadsides, railroad rights-of-way, farm¬ 
steads, fencerows, etc.). Taken together, these cover types totaled 
8,373 acres (36 percent of the land area) in 1962 but only 3>450 acres 
(15 percent) in 1971. Thus, total available pheasant nesting cover on 
the study area (excluding soybeans) has declined almost 60 percent 
since 1962 . 
Hayfields, the prime pheasant nesting cover, made up only 489 
acres ( 2.1 percent of the land area) last summer, compared with 610 
acres (2.6 percent) in 1970. In 1962, there were 2,1 92 acres of hay 
on the study area. Hayfield cover has therefore diminished nearly 78 
percent in the past 10 years. Acreages of small grains declined only 
slightly from 1970 (1,022 acres) to 1971 (1,000 acres); in I 962 there 
were 3,457 acres of this crop on the study area. 
The amount of permanent cover has remained relatively constant 
over the past 10 years. Cover in this category declined only 6 percent 
between 1 962 (1,875 acres) and 1971 (1,763 acres). However, of the 
total acreage of permanent cover, only roadsides (350 acres each of 
the past 10 years) constitute even reasonably good pheasant nesting 
cover. 
2. Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat G. B. Joselyn 
In the last Monthly Wildlife Research Letter (14(9):1), it was 
reported that densities of pheasant nests this year ( 1971 ) on seeded 
roadside plots (3>5 nests per acre) represented the second highest rate 
of nest establishment on this type of roadside since the study began 
in 1963 * The highest nest density reported over the past 9 years on 
seeded plots was 3-8 nests per acre in 1964. Nest densities on ^ 
managed control plots in 1971 were 2.4 nests per acre, also the 
second highest density for this type of plot in the past 9 years, ( 
the highest density being 2.8 nests per acre in 1963* 
LIBRARY 
On seeded plots in 1971, successful nest production (0.7 nest 
per acre) was down slightly from production in 1970 (0.8 nest per acre). 
