10 
ing together in a loose unit. Capture efficiency was 
high under these circumstances because the fleeing 
birds could be easily observed on the ground. Inas- 
much as scattered bobwhites were not particularly 
prone to flush, the birds were relatively easy to net 
(Fig. 7). A skilled netter could sometimes maneuver 
so as to make multiple catches, usually two or three 
birds. 
Bobwhites were more difficult to capture when roost- 
ing in heavy vegetative cover. After the covey was 
flushed, individuals usually settled into the cover and 
remained sedentary. Most of these birds had to be 
relocated by slow, methodical cruising, and the best 
method was to cruise in a spiral pattern, moving out- 
ward from the flush site. To capture a bobwhite in this 
heavy cover, it was necessary to see the bird on the 
ground, detect it by its movement (by sight or sound) 
in the vegetation, or reflush it. When a bird was either 
seen or detected by its movement, netting was usually 
done in the illumination of the floodlights. Reflushed 
bobwhites were spotlighted and pursued in the normal 
way, and the netter usually trapped the bird by thrust- 
ing the net over the spotlighted site where it alighted. 
When nightlighting in heavy vegetation, many of the 
captured bobwhites were netted “blind’’—the netter 
trapped the bird by placing his net over a spot of 
vegetation where the spotlight operator had detected 
movement and directed the light beam. 
Wind was the weather condition that most ham- 
pered the capture of bobwhites by nightlighting; it set 
the vegetation in motion, making it difficult or im- 
possible to detect the birds’ movements. Quiet, dark, 
cloudy nights with heavy dew, light rain, or frost were 
favored for nightlighting bobwhites. 
About half of all bobwhites flushed in farmland 
habitats, but only a third of those flushed in nonfarm- 
land habitats, were captured by nightlighting in au- 
tumn (Table 2). The capture efficiency in the two 
broad habitat types was influenced by two factors. 
First, nightlighting for bobwhites on farmland was 
done principally in fields of small-grain stubble, where 
often the vegetation was either short (sometimes 
mowed) or light to moderate in terms of stem density. 
In such cover bobwhites were observable and, thus, eas- 
ily trapped. On nonfarmland, nightlighting usually 
had to be conducted in fields of undisturbed grasses 
and weeds that were interspersed with deciduous 
woods. Scattered bobwhites were difficult to relocate 
Fig. 7.—Here an undetected bobwhite from a previously flushed covey was reflushed as the netter approached another spot- 
lighted covey member (on ground) from the outer fringe of the area illuminated by the floodlights. The driver instantaneously 
centered the flushing bobwhite in the spotlight beam so as to quickly “knock” him down. 
