typical. 
(15 mph or more) caused roosting pheasants, particu- 
larly those in large flocks, to flush wildly. Wind also 
caused vegetation to wave, which made it difficult for 
the observers to locate and follow pheasants that ran 
from their roosting sites. 
Although fog or rain often caused pheasants to 
“hold tight” to their roosting sites, these same weather 
conditions usually hindered the trapping operation 
more than they aided it because of low visibility, re- 
duced effectiveness of lights, and, in the case of rain, 
soft fields. Pheasants were most susceptible to capture 
when the vegetation was wet with dew or covered with 
frost. Cold temperatures (—10° to 10°F.) , particularly 
when the ground was covered by snow, caused roosting 
pheasants to be flighty. Under the latter conditions in 
Illinois, pheasants often roosted in corn stubble (rather 
than in small-grain stubble or hay), which made their 
capture by nightlighting very arduous because it is 
dificult to maneuver the vehicle in row-crop fields. 
Pheasants were more susceptible to capture by night- 
lighting on moderately cold, cloudy nights following 
rain in autumn, and on relatively warm nights fol- 
lowing a marked cold spell in winter. In late winter 
and spring, soft fields, which prevented vehicle access, 
hampered the capture of pheasants more than any 
other factor. 
Pheasants were skittish and difficult to capture on 
Fig. 5.—In this capture effort the relative positions of vehicle, netter, and pheasant about to be captured at his roosting site are 
bright moonlit nights, particularly when the vegeta- 
tion was dry or covered by snow. When the vegetation 
was dew-laden or frosty, moonlight seemed to have 
little effect on the flightiness of pheasants. 
Nearly half of all pheasants initially observed during 
nightlighting operations in autumn (prehunting sea- 
son) were captured, whereas only about a third of 
those located in winter (posthunting season) were cap- 
tured (Table 1). Although total pheasant numbers 
were less after each hunting season than before, the 
number of roosting pheasants per unit of trappable 
cover was greater after the hunting season than before. 
Fall plowing of small-grain stubble and hay fields se- 
verely reduced the amount of cover that had been used 
by roosting pheasants in autumn, and by the beginning 
of winter the birds were concentrated in the fields that 
offered vegetation suitable for roosting. Even when 
large blocks of roosting cover were available, pheas- 
ants often roosted in large flocks, sometimes as many 
as 200 birds, on winter nights. In general, the per- 
centage of pheasants captured varied inversely with 
the number of pheasants that were flushed per unit of 
cover searched. 
The time required to capture a pheasant averaged 
5.5 minutes in autumn and 6.8 minutes in winter dur- 
ing the 6 years, 1956-1962 (Table 1). In autumn the 
capture time per bird decreased as population abun- 
