As weather extremes such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards seem to be constant topics of discussion, so too are questions about how weather affects wildlife.
Bobwhite quail occur over a vast portion of North America that has where there is a range of weather variability.
That this remarkable bird can exist in places as dissimilar as the humid subtropical regions of Florida and the arid Llana Estacado of New Mexico is a testament to its ability to be flexible. However, there are limits to this flexibility, and extreme weather puts stress on all wildlife and can lead to reduced reproduction, animal health, or even death.
Rainfall is certainly influential to bobwhite.
Severe multi-year droughts with less than 15 inches of annual precipitation can occur in the southern Great Plains. Even in years with higher annual rainfall, it rarely is evenly distributed leaded to “flash droughts.”
Droughts often limit the amount of food and cover for bobwhite which can dramatically affect population size from year to year.
In the Southeast, single events can produce rainfall in excess of 10 inches. Flooding can concentrate bobwhite into small areas and expose them to predators while at the same time, young bobwhite are at risk of hypothermia when wet at nearly any temperature, therefore timing and duration of rain matters.
Extreme temperatures also put stress on bobwhite.
A bobwhite population may experience swings of more than 100 degrees within a few weeks’ time.
At both high and low temperature, bobwhite require more calories and need to consume additional food to survive. While we often think about extreme cold, bobwhite become heat stressed at about 85 degrees and use gular flutter, vibrating their throat, to cool off which burns a lot of calories.
Also, bobwhite may seek out places on the landscape that offer refuge from extreme temperature. If these places are not abundant and near food sources, bobwhite are exposed to predation risk and/or at risk of starvation.
Wind also is highly variable it may provide cooling during hot weather, but exacerbates cold temperatures and wet conditions.
Further, high winds can make it difficult for bobwhite to detect predators as vegetation movement and noise provides cover for predators. Bobwhite often change their behavior during high winds which may reduce feeding opportunity or place them in limited patches of cover.
Extreme winds have been known to directly kill bobwhite, although this is uncommon.
Given that a land manager cannot directly control the weather, it may seem futile to even consider it in a management plan.
However, there are ways to mitigate for extreme weather. The best way to accomplish this is to provide abundant cover and food resources that are well distributed across the property.
When food is readily available, bobwhite do not need to spend as much time finding it. This allows them to seek shelter from the sun, rain, and wind.
Additionally, bobwhite need a lot of calories to prevent hyperthermia or hypothermia. They need shrubs for more than protection from predators. The distribution of shrubs is important.
Ideally, thermal shrub cover would be near (under 50-100 yards) any point on the property. Also, while some shrubs provide good protection from the sun, others are better insulators from cold winter storms.
Therefore, managing for a diverse set of shrub species is another hedge against extreme weather rather than relying on only one or two dominant shrub species which likely do not serve as year-round cover.
Managers cannot fully protect bobwhite from weather, but they certainly can lessen the effect.
Providing large areas of high-quality habitat is the primary way to achieve this so that the property is resilient to the uncertainty of extreme weather.
In doing so, the bobwhite manager is more likely to carry more birds on the property and experience less dramatic annual bobwhite population fluctuations.
