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Continued...
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 The dummy nest is positioned in a prickly pear cactus. On my next trip, I took the GPS location of each marker, habitat photos for baseline illustrations of the land, and forb diversity surveys. For each habitat photo I took a dry-erase board and wrote out the mile marker number and then either L or R (for left or right), depending on which side of the road I was photographing. I then walked out 20 feet from the road and had my mom take my picture with our digital camera. We did this for every station, and then printed out all 22 of the pictures. These were sent to Dr. Rollins in San Angelo so that he could record them. He then appraised each site based on how much he thought the habitat would appeal to quail. Using this data, he assigned our ranch a 4.6, with 10 being the very finest quail habitat. I was not discouraged because I knew our land had suffered from a long-term drought and that the plant life needed time to recover.  Some of the destroyed eggs provide clues as to what predator consumed them. An avian predator, like a crow, took the egg on the left. To assess the plant species diversity, I used a hula hoop (very scientific!) and randomly tossed it over my shoulder on both sides of the road at every mile marker. After the hoop had come to rest, I recorded the number of different species inside it, as well as the number of each type. I then had to identify each plant, which is where Mr. Pritz really became a big help. While my mother and I knew many of the trees and larger forbs, we were completely lost when it came to grasses. Once all this work was done, we calculated our Species Diversity Score. This was the reason I counted every plant. The score is calculated by dividing the total number of different species by the total number of plants. Our diversity score was 0.96. I was hopeful. We had already gotten 8.98 inches of rain that year. It was looking to be a wetter year.  This egg was most likely taken by a raccoon. I performed a population survey by listening to the quail rooster as he crowed his spring mating calls. I would go out in the early morning and spend five minutes at each mile marker, listening for his distinctive poor-bob-white. I would record where I heard various roosters on a distance chart and the number of times I heard the call within a five-minute period. I did this at every mile marker three times between May 1 and June 1. This information gave me an idea of the breeding intensity and the number of roosters located near the transect. I knew that in some areas we had a large number of mating roosters, while at one or two of the markers I heard virtually none at all. |
The next big assignment was our dummy nest depredation survey, which we conducted in June. This was an experiment devised to mimic the success of quail nests using simulated nests with chicken eggs instead of quail eggs. This survey corresponded with the quails' natural nesting time. Mr. Pritz's assistance was invaluable, as this project was extremely tedious and difficult. The protocol for this experiment was to draw six numbers randomly from zero to 10. At each of the six mile-marker numbers drawn, we assembled a nest transect. At the designated mile markers, I flipped a coin to decide left or right. This was so that the data would be a random scattering from all over the ranch. Each nest transect consisted of six nests planted at roughly 50-yard intervals on a line perpendicular to the road. At each interval I tied pieces of flagging tape, choosing either prickly pear cactus or bunch grass depending on whether it was an odd- or even-numbered nest. From the flagging tape I walked to the nearest bunch grass or cactus patch that might qualify as a selected nesting site. I then placed three chicken eggs in what we deemed a nesting site. If there wasn't a good place available, I made one with the toe of my boot. I then faced the flag and counted the number of paces back to it. We recorded a bearing of the direction using a compass and GPS coordinates. This would allow me to locate the nest again if I was unable to remember where it was. It also gave us the flexibility to have another person on the team check the nests even if he or she hadn't helped us set them out. I checked on the nests once a week for a month. When the nests were monitored the first week, I found that a third of the nests had been destroyed. All six nests at one of the mile markers had been wiped out in the first week. I hypothesized that this was because of some odor we had left on the eggs, because each nest was destroyed by the same species of predator. I knew this because of the way the eggs were broken and consumed. Observation told me that a raccoon probably went down the length of the transect and had an egg buffet. This might have indicated a high quail-egg predation rate except for the scent we probably left on the nests. I had tried to avoid this by wearing rubber gloves and rubber-soled boots. Over the next three weeks I noted a continued drop in nest success. During this time I observed a red-tailed hawk. Every time I checked the nests at mile marker 8, I would see it sitting atop a nearby telephone pole. It would often screech and circle our car when we came over the hill. At the end of the third week, I still had 16 nests out of the original 36. I thought this was great since quail take only 23 days to incubate their eggs. I was unable to investigate the nests during the fourth week because we received 13.01 inches of rain on July 7. This was a flood, and many houses in town were badly damaged, including my great-grandmother's. We had to put the TQI on the back burner for a while as we gutted and rebuilt her house. However, from the data I had gathered, I was able to get an idea of the role that small mammalian predators play in the life of the quail living on our ranch. |
