Great Plains Natural Science Society

 

The Prairie Naturalist

Date of this Version

12-2013

Document Type

Article

Citation

The Prairie Naturalist 45: 114–117. December 2013

Comments

Published by the Great Plains Natural Science Society, 2013. Used by permission.

Abstract

Ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) are a highly sought after game bird and as such, much research has been conducted regarding their ecology (Warner 1981, Trautman 1982, Johnson and Knue 1989). Perhaps the most investigated aspect of pheasant ecology is the species’ reproductive season (e.g. Linder et al. 1960, Dumke and Pils 1979, Leif 1994) with many studies focusing on nesting habitat (Baskett 1947, Clark et al. 1999). Results from previous research have acknowledged the difficulty associated with locating pheasant nests in their preferred cover types (Hanson 1970, Evrard 2000). Studies of pheasant nesting ecology have been based on ability to locate nests (Schottler et al. 2008) and as such, a variety of methods have been employed for locating nests (Whiteside and Guthery 1983, Berthelsen et al. 1990, Evrard 2000). Methods used for locating pheasant nests include, but are not limited to, a cable chain device (Higgins et al. 1969, Evrard 2000), a rope drag technique (Duebbert and Kantrud 1974), radio telemetry (Dumke and Pils 1979, Whiteside and Guthery 1983), intensive ground searches (Stokes 1954, Labisky 1957), haying (Hanson 1970), and spring prescribed burning to find legacy pheasant nests (Schottler et al. 2008). Use of numerous methods for locating pheasant nests suggests that any one method is not useful across all research efforts.

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