Considering that the annual turnover rate in the pheasant population is about 70%, pheasants hatched in the spring make up the majority of the pheasants harvested in the fall. Since we can't control the weather, what can be done to ensure the survival of newborn chicks? In Nebraska, population densities of pheasants are largely controlled by one significant habitat factor.
Winter Cover is a habitat type that is important to pheasants and quail. Cover that provides hens protection from predators and severe blizzards as well as food during the hashest of winters, will allow them to be healthy going into the spring nesting period. That same woody, cattail like cover will also provide warmth and protection for chicks during the spring. Although rarely a limiting factor Nebraska, food plots will also enhance any existing winter cover.
An effective shelterbelt also provides loafing, feeding, roosting and escape cover for ring-necked pheasants and other upland wildlife throughout the year. In the harshest winters, shelterbelts are even more important to resident wildlife by becoming rescue cover, allowing a nucleus of breeding individuals to survive the winter and repopulate the rural landscape next spring.
Even though food is generally not considered to limit pheasant numbers in most of their range, winter cover can be made much more effective with high-energy food nearby. In many years food is hardly needed, but you must plan for the worst-case scenario. Food plots are critical for pheasant management because of the relationship between mortality, food, and winter cover. Think of winter cover as both foraging habitat (concealing feeding birds from predators) and roosting areas (where birds seek shelter from winter storms). Even in a mild winter, the closer the two covers are positioned, the more the pheasants will benefit. Peter Berthelsen, Senior Field Coordinator, describes this as "putting the kitchen right next to the bedroom."
The protective nature of foraging cover changes remarkably during the winter. Grain stubble and weed patches that concealed feeding birds in fall now trap blowing snow, and are soon buried. Pheasants are forced to concentrate in available roosting cover, venturing only as far as needed to feed. Birds in these islands of habitat quickly reduce nearby food resources. Pheasants continue to feed on buried grain by scratching through the snow, but they do so in the open-exposed. Thus, the high winter mortality rates experienced by pheasants come not from starvation, but from weather and predation. There is also a strong correlation between spring body weight and chick production. Well-placed food parches establish safe foraging patterns, restrict unnecessary movements, and provide dependable food to carry female birds through winter in good condition.
Winter habitat can roughly be divided into foraging cover and roosting cover. Foraging cover helps keep birds concealed from predators while they are feeding. Roosting cover is where the birds can seek shelter from harsh temperatures and blowing snow. During mild winters there may be little or no difference between these two cover types. As a general rule, the closer these cover types are positioned, the more pheasants will benefit from them.
How does hunting affect the bird population? Experience in Nebraska and elsewhere demonstrates beyond argument that when pheasant numbers are reduced below a certain level, hunters will no longer pursue them. After a certain minimum density has been reached, their scarcity combined with the birds wiliness make it almost impossible for hunters to shoot enough of them to adversely affect the population. Even at these low numbers, rooster populations remain high enough to breed with all the available hens (one rooster will breed with as many as 12 hens), and recovery of the population depends primarily on habitat availability, not on the number of roosters.