Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410200040
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``I was 0-for-12 there for a while,'' he said.
No, Fies isn't a baseball player. He is the small game research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Fies is heading a quail research project in Amelia County, where he has placed nickel-size radio transmitters on more than two dozen quail to study their nesting success and movements.
All through the summer, he watched nesting effort after nesting effort destroyed by predators.
In one case, a hawk caught a hen quail when she left her nest to feed. In 11 other instances, eggs were destroyed by ground predators.
``Just exactly what the predators are, we aren't certain,'' Fies said.
In the "suspect" category are creatures such as foxes, skunks, snakes and raccoons.
Just as summer was about to give way to autumn, Fies found success at two nest sites, which gave him a 2-for-14 record for the season.
``One was Labor Day and the other was the Thursday of Labor Day week,'' he said.
That's late - real late.
The big question now: Did the late hatch also occur in other areas of the state?
Fies said he can't be certain, but gets the feeling that may be the case.
``When the two nests came off right around Labor Day, it seems like I started seeing lots of broods. I was just running into a bunch of broods late. Talking with other people, they told me the same thing. They are seeing broods now, young broods.''
All this makes preseason predicting for the upcoming season fraught with uncertainty.
Fies relies on rural mail carriers to help provide him information on quail numbers. As they carry their routes, they record the number of quail, rabbits and squirrels that they observe. The survey is done each August.
This time, the mail-carrier survey showed quail numbers to be down slightly.
That went against what Fies perceived as good breeding weather throughout the early nesting season.
``I don't understand it. I guess what I am hoping for, is that we might have had a pretty good late hatch that didn't show up in my mail carrier survey. The hatch would have happened after the survey was done.''
If this is the case, hunters can expect some pretty small birds to erupt in front of their bird dogs when the season opens. ``Squealers'' is what old-timers call them.
Even so, Fies believes the season will be an improvement over last year. But that's not saying much, considering that last season was a poor one. The flush rate, according to Game Department figures, was 0.32 birds per hunted hour.
The purpose of Fies three-year, $65,000 study is to help determine why quail numbers are declining in Virginia and what can be done to reverse the trend. Fies plans to significantly increase the number of birds equipped with radios next spring.
Game Department surveys reveal that quail bagged by Virginia sportsmen declined from almost 1.2 million in 1968 to fewer than 200,000 in 1989, when the population appeared to hit its lowest point.
It has eased up slightly since then, but Fies would like to see much more progress. It doesn't appear that occurred this year.
The season is open Nov.14-Jan. 31.
by CNB