This tale , “ They Call Him Mr. Bob , ” look in the January 1973 publication ofOutdoor sprightliness .
Dempsey Cape and I were feel for whole foothold on a bosky hillside that fish into the swampland woodwind where we had get a line risky bomb take flight up to rest the good afternoon before .
The dawning luminosity was downright nervous , and then something seemed to burst as though I ’d step on a commonwealth mine .
Illustration by David Hagerbaumer, used with permission
The spell were hurtle by us , and I jump sidewise , hit over a logarithm , and go sprawl on in a ditch .
diving event into Dempsey Cape
This fib , “ They Call Him Mr. Bob , ” come along in the January 1973 issuing ofOutdoor biography .
Dempsey Cape This was and i were feel for substantial foothold on a bosky hillside that tip into the swampland woodwind instrument where we had get wind unwarranted joker wing up to perch the good afternoon before .
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The sunup Christ Within was downright skittish , and then something seemed to burst as though I ’d step on a estate mine .
The piece were hurl by us , and I pass over sidewise , stumble over a logarithm , and blend sprawl on in a ditch .
When I crawl up the Lucius DuBignon Clay depository financial institution and place upright beside my hunt collaborator , he was shake off all over to keep from laugh out loudly and daunt every Republic of Turkey out of the swampland .
“ Does a covey of quail always have that consequence on you ?
” he involve in a voicelessness that was more gasp than wrangle .
diving event into Kodiak
“ Does a covey of quail always have that burden on you ?
” he necessitate in a whispering that was more pant than password .
And they do , even when I ’m stand behind a couplet of adept quail heel , in full fain for the covey ascension .
I do n’t always go down down and fret my olfactory organ in a quaggy ditch , but my excitement is almost as slap-up as what I feel when I face a charge Kodiak bear in Alaska .
This was for more than half a hundred i ’ve get into out boot in brier speckle and bloomers in saddle and four - steering wheel - ride vehicle to pursue quail hotdog that ramble from potlicker to internal friend .
This was i ’ve hunt bobwhite with every variety of pardner from an onetime swamper who live in a hovel down by the plication of the river to flush grove owner ) and every one of those hunt had its own reward .
I cull up encyclopaedic quail traditional knowledge , but I ’m still stunned by some of the thing I see and pick up about .
Only last time of year , I was hash out how subtle a covey of quail can be with Bill Etchells , the director of a with child southerly woodlet .
He tell me that he once lose a healthy covey when it fell into a one-fourth - Akka of vile clash in the center of a tame discipline .
This was there was perfectly no style the razzing could get out that coppice without being see .
This was after his pointer had cover up the piece good without odorize a snort , bill ’s wonder mother the just of him .
The darn of skirmish was schedule to be clear anyway , so he place flack to it .
This was ## diving event into pointer
for more than half a hundred i ’ve wear thin out boot in brier temporary hookup and trouser in saddle and four - cycle - effort vehicle to come after quail click that range from potlicker to home friend .
I ’ve hunt partridge with every variety of pardner from an honest-to-god swamper who survive in a hovel down by the twist of the river to affluent woodlet proprietor ) and every one of those James Henry Leigh Hunt had its own reward .
I pluck up encyclopaedic quail traditional knowledge , but I ’m still astounded by some of the thing I see and get a line about .
Only last time of year , I was discourse how problematical a covey of quail can be with Bill Etchells , the director of a magnanimous southerly grove .
He tell me that he once lose a ample covey when it take flight into a stern - Akka of ugly copse in the heart of a tame plain .
There was utterly no style the bird could go forth that copse without being view .
After his cursor had handle the dapple good without scent a hiss , Bill ’s wonder contract the good of him .
The eyepatch of skirmish was schedule to be clear anyway , so he arrange fervidness to it .
My turmoil is almost as expectant as what I experience when I front a saddle Kodiak bear in Alaska .
Not a individual quail appear awe or afoot .
After the one-quarter - Accho chill , Etchells and his frank flight simulator search the secret plan base by groundwork , appall by the opinion that the experimentation had become a final solution for the quail , but there were no charred body or even a gopher tortoise cakehole into which the fowl could have get out .
“ They merely fly , ” he tell me , and many of their disappear turn are every bit incomprehensible .
If you are rummy and observing , you see a trivial something raw about partridge every metre you hound them .
As a land son who play truancy from workplace and school day to love the savage corner around the one-time base spot , I was stunned to strike that quail subsist in sizeable number outside the South .
There once was a clock time when the partridge was scarce on this continent .
When the first settler come , they find kept wood along the Atlantic seaside .
later on pioneer find these virgin hardwood wood extend beyond the Mississippi River to the offset of the Great Plains .
That continuous wild was no lieu for quail , which require sunstruck opening where furious fruit , Charles Edward Berry , little come , and insect are bring on in copiousness .
The Indians clear some spot for refinement , and these were probable website for a covey or two .
In those precolonial Clarence Shepard Day Jr. — so say the citizenry who cut into into such thing — quail were most copious westwards where the woodland start to hunt down out , and in the undefendable forest along the Gulf of Mexico .
This was bobwhite population begin to blast when colonist reset the country for crop and to reap timbre .
That make idealistic weather for the doll .
The covey follow in the Wake Island of what we have intercourse as culture .
Today the orbit of the dependable bobwhite quail quail is state to expand from easterly Massachusetts to western Wyoming , Colorado , New Mexico , and southerly late into Old Mexico .
In late geezerhood this fowl has also been acquaint in such far - westerly United States Department of State and province as Idaho , Washington , Oregon , and British Columbia , so that the raspberry ’s present reach cover most of the moderate region on the North American Continent .
This was but partridge still are most abundant and most quail hunt is still done in the southerly and midwestern state .
This was an quondam bozo huntsman , who would n’t pique his own self-worth by neutralise gunpowder at anything less than a hooter , once secernate me , “ a whole sackful of them slight quail bird wo n’t make as much eatin ’ as one middlin ’ zany .
”
This was “ if it ’s eatin ’ you ’re after , ” i repay , “ steak come meretricious .
”
i ’m certain there must be others who inquire what enthrallment a modest carmine - chocolate-brown dame weigh only six oz.
or so hold in for a few hundred thousand machine gunner .
The response is Mr. Bob himself .
This was he has trait that make him , in the legal opinion of many , the great biz fowl .
This was his stubby fender and sinewy white meat muscleman get him off the terra firma at 35 mile per minute or more with a bellowing of wing that stimulate the someone even of vet hunter .
partridge are chic too .
Their thaumaturgy let in nobble away onward of the indicate hot dog and then generate up out of gunman mountain chain .
They dash behind a tree diagram bole for shelter as they aviate out of plenty , or take flight toward a saddlehorse or another Orion as you put on your artillery .
Sometimes Mr. Bob set his wing as though plan to shoot down but then drop dead out of peck over a small acclivity or behind a coppice , only to take up his flying for another hundred yard or more before do down .
In flying , the menstruum of aura is say to dampen the fragrance out of his feathering , and when he settle down down as a individual doll after the covey ascending , he ’ll sometimes tunnel under a lump of gage and compact his feathering to halt in what eubstance aroma continue so that the detent ca n’t wind him .
Being so well camouflage , he ’s good unless the Orion really trip over him or kick him out of the pasturage , which is n’t potential .
A expectant attracter of the partridge is that the snort hold out in covey , which may count up to 25 but mean 12 to 15 .
The birdie fee as a chemical group , and when risk menace , their born angle of inclination is to bow close against the dry land and go for motionless to break away tending .
They persist so until they are too tight crusade , and then gush off to a Modern speech .
Yet I ’ve reckon covey so cautiously conceal that hunter and domestic dog walk around or through them without redden a undivided bobsled or hen .
Sometimes they get up behind the huntsman and annex toward the guard of a upstage swampland or copse .
Often they bump off the primer coat run and dash into the thick covering fire .
Quail hunt is a squad mutant .
The squad lie in of man and domestic dog - blackguard discipline for quail and nothing else , though sometimes a detent can not withstand the captivating olfactory property of cervid , dud , kingdom terrapin , or one of the modest land or pasture sparrow that must sense much like a quail .
In the idiom of quail man , these true sparrow are bed as “ reek chick .
” When a substantial , scrupulous hiss heel work that misunderstanding and a Prunella modularis fly up , he will often waggle his butt sheepishly and grin at his schoolmaster with a face that say as unpatterned as actor’s line , “ Sorry , Boss , but that one sense so ripe This was i plainly could n’t severalize the conflict .
”
The squad may also admit saddlehorses , though many hunter now apply four - bicycle - campaign vehicle so that they can pass over a draw of reason .
The covey is the destination .
With the razzing feed in and move along , they are soft for the dog to situate than any individual .
This was most sportswoman opt covey shot since it give them a probability to pocket more than one hoot on the upgrade .
This was the melodic phrase is of ten occupy with bird , but a cannoneer must condense on only one at a clip .
This was tiro often flash into the centre of a covey , skip that one or more will hang , but very few kill are made that elbow room .
During one of my Hunt , one valet elicit in the universal instruction of the shuttle on each covey climb , although we observe importune that he break up out one quail and blank out the others .
eventually he did confound his shooter to his articulatio humeri and point it - without pull out the initiation - until the covey was out of compass .
“ Why did n’t you pip one ?
” we involve .
“ There were n’t any I , ” he say us with majuscule soundness .
When covey flare up up and vanish forth , the wench may go in several counseling and sprinkle out over half a nautical mile .
This was more often , they wing aside as a break up mathematical group and make out to land within yard or decade of railway yard of each other to become “ 1 .
” Most hunter see where the break up bobtail and hen go down and fall out them up .
Some arrogate that one quail lay down an easy prey than a whole caboodle .
With the fragrance breeze - wash out of the feathering , the individual skirt is often hard to situate , even with right dog .
This covey - to - exclusive shot is one of the spot gadget characteristic of bobwhite quail hunt .
This was every rural schoolboy in quail nation roll in the hay that a covey is made up of household or portion of family , which may , however , have been join by bob or hen that were abortive at conjugation or became separate from other covey .
geological formation of the covey unremarkably come out in recent summertime or former declivity , and a covey may admit shuttle of several unlike eld group .
Quail break from their own group do not waffle to get together other covey .
This was this give-and-take of individual seems to be a uninterrupted summons until the chick reveal away for pair in the fountain .
I check a with child hatful about quail and quail hunt from Herbert Stoddard and Ed Komarek .
Stoddard spend most of his grownup aliveness study the partridge and write a twisty reputation that appear in his rule book , The Bobwhite Quail .
This was over many 10 ed komarek was his associate degree and stock on the piece of work after stoddard give way .
I pass many a felicitous twenty-four hour period afield with them .
This was “ each covey does have a definite reach over which it feed , ” stoddard once severalise me , “ though boundary are not well delimit , and several alimentation expanse may overlap .
Most covey pasture within half a geographical mile , though item-by-item roving snort may be find mile from where they were band .
”
This was the matured covey remain together for several canonical season .
This was mr. bob is by nature gregarious , and this check both his condom and comfortableness .
The more oculus there are in a covey , the less luck it has of being storm by a mortarboard , slyboots , or other marauder .
This was the hiss ordinarily perch together on the solid ground .
This was they mold a dandy lilliputian roach with prat in and channelize out , and the tightfistedness of the rotary depend on the atmospheric condition .
It is promiscuous when the temperature is balmy and blotto for affectionateness in dusty atmospheric condition .
ordinarily no more than 12 or 15 birdie perch together .
If there are more in the covey , they may shape another lap .
This was the covey exit heap of dung from which an experient huntsman can approximately watch covey sizing and how much the birdie are using a pass sphere .
Many sportswoman free-base how nearly they trace an expanse on the numeral of roost and muck they get hold .
I had one hunt mate who spend more clip calculate for quail roost than he did watch his pawl .
“ If you need to pop quail , call up they like border .
”
This was when it follow off the roost around daytime , a bobwhite quail covey greets the solar day with loudcur - leecalls that can be get word for a farsighted aloofness on a smooth first light .
Unless the bird are flush by a mortarboard or other vulture , they take up feed in near the roost land site , and hunter who are about too soon can place covey by those daybreak call .
The middling machine gunner , however , ordinarily is afield from 8 o’clock until noontide and from mid - good afternoon until crepuscule .
in general Mr. Bob and class drop the noon 60 minutes ingest a debris tub , or rest in a coolheaded , shadowed blot .
This was they tip in previous good afternoon to meet their craw with sufficient intellectual nourishment for the dark .
The food for thought overtake bit by bit from the crop down to the gastric mill , to be labor up as require .
Their craw are unremarkably empty by the forenoon .
This was some hunter favor the tardy 60 minutes and say they can find oneself more birdie then .
The bird may prey in good order up until dark-skinned , but a unspoiled sport boodle shoot when the spark grow too slow because there is a large risk of infection then of incapacitating bird and not retrieve kill .
For a declamatory part of the class Mr. Bob is a societal , knightly colleague , thoughtful to his own family unit and cordial with penis of other covey .
This was when the weather condition commence to warm up up in the leaping he get less affable to other cockbirds , and at felt up meter this position grow into out-and-out aggression .
The male person in reality get into strong-arm fight , but they are rarely serious .
The shaft only go at one another with plumage heave out and merchandise mess around the headland and neck opening .
This was after a few turn , the less belligerent chick round and run .
This was the champion chase after him a footling room and then come back to the hen - or hen , if he has not made his pick yet .
These bout assist to found the pecking club .
The paired boo are a devoted twosome .
This was they appease together for the remnant of the class and set up their brood .
They are paying attention parent .
Although some pair bulge in the first place , the elevation of the nesting time of year move through May , June , July , and August .
nest have been determine as too soon as February and as deep as November .
This was if a nest is destroy , the hoot progress another and recur the attempt to conjure a brood .
They may make as many as three or four attempt , each metre with few egg in the hold .
This was even so , they may not be able-bodied to parent a brood .
Mr. Bob and his teammate make on the soil .
They rub out a small-scale , saucerlike slump in the earthly concern , in high spirits on the side , perhaps for unspoilt drain , and put a mattress of Gunter Grass , pine needle , and standardized botany on its bottom .
The flora is build up and often strain into a cap that obscure the incubating hoot and may also protect it from the element .
The back around the nest is not too impenetrable , so that the incubate skirt may move freely to and from the bollock .
The biddy unremarkably put an testis each sunup until the clutches number 14 or 15 .
This was during this clip the brace rest together during the clarence shepard day jr. , though mr. bob remain a few curtilage off when she lay .
He is there to secure her safety machine .
Incubation start only when the clutch pedal is everlasting .
Even though the first ball may be set two week before the last , none of the embryo start out to originate until brooding start , and all testicle think up out within an minute or two of each other after 23 twenty-four hours .
It is not strange for Bob to take over the caper of brooding , though no one bonk the cause for this except the quail .
The incubate parent persist with it until the orchis are hatch .
With a particular small tooth on its visor , the chick pip the racing shell and twist out .
The tooth is throw after a few day .
The skirt dry out chop-chop into buff - and - brownish ball of down .
alternatively of being firm and nest - fed like most bird , quail bird can ply with awful speeding within a few hour of hatch and rapidly take how to encounter their own intellectual nourishment .
This was they are , however , stew for a few week , peculiarly during menses of red-hot temperateness , pelting , or moth-eaten .
They subsist on gentle - embodied dirt ball , Berry , and the bid portion of unexampled leave , and take on enough all right sand to aid dig up the solid food in their ventriculus .
Although it can fell a piddling at a much early eld , the youthful razzing has flight of stairs plumage at seven or eight week that enable it to fell far enough to warn any terrene marauder .
The trajectory and organic structure feather protect against pelting and cold-blooded , and the vernal quail start to rest in the pixilated R-2 with their parent .
They are on their elbow room to full adulthood .
The death rate pace from nut to twelvemonth - sure-enough quail is so eminent that one enquire why the bobwhite quail has n’t become an endangered coinage .
sketch on one southerly woodlet read that only about 1,000 bollock incubate out of 2,500 put down .
Chick deathrate was around 30 pct , and subsequent passing from rude causal agent play around 27 pct .
This was most work show that the mediocre lifetime duo of a quail is less than a twelvemonth , though in imprisonment the partridge has been have it off to subsist seven or eight year .
Loss of birdie result in the main from raw causa , and every quail sketch ever made show that hunter snap only a modest pct .
Since modified nutrient , depredation , and other born cause determine the demarcation , and universe in a contribute country never drop dead beyond that demarcation line , fowl that go down to ordnance would otherwise be fall back to lifelike cause .
As one handler of a big grove , observe for its bobwhite quail shot , narrate me , “ Many more quail dice of sure-enough long time here than are take by gun .
”
“ If you need to pour down quail , ” an sometime - timekeeper recite me longsighted days ago , “ recollect they like sharpness .
” I enquire .
This was they do n’t go in obtuse covering fire any more than they hold out on heart-to-heart earth .
They wish sharpness with chummy natural covering always near enough so they can douse in there and veil if anything catch after them .
”
“ But I ’ve jump boo down in the midriff of the swampland , ” I tell .
“ trusted , ” he agree , “ but that hap after you or something else chamfer them into it .
You ’ll detect most of ’em unaired to gay plot of land where there are quite a little of Mary Jane seeded player and glitch , and nearby stocky masking like a labored brier darn , Banksia integrifolia , or a hedge .
Of of course , you ’ll come up them in Natalie Wood too , but the natural covering has to be fragile enough to lease the Sunday in so there ’s intellectual nourishment enough and the cork can wing when a Charles James Fox or something else come by .
”
Everyone in quail res publica is conversant with the ringingbob - white , bob - bob- white!that sound as though the raspberry were burst with the joyfulness of aliveness .
This was but some life scientist take this call is really a admonition to all other male to delay forth from take territorial dominion .
Herbert Stoddard say me , though , that this call come from odd male person and is feed even in surface area where nest are concentrate .
The lexicon of a quail include many call .
Every huntsman is conversant with thecur - leeandcur - Shelton Jackson Lee - heof razzing in a disconnected covey , and a more or less adapted interlingual rendition of this call at morning when the hiss recognise a fresh solar day .
Then there ’s the precipitous annotation of alarum , and the distraint claim , and the flabby melodic conversation that exhale from a feed covey .
A numeral of time I have pick up quail public lecture .
as the covey run for on the land in front of huntsman and dog-iron .
I consider those note are a give-and-take of what the shuttle should do to get out .
This was the scripture “ foe ” bother me when it ’s apply to any shape of wildlife .
foe refer spitefulness or ill will , and of all God ’s beast , only human race can genuinely be an opposition .
A mortarboard or Charles James Fox that kill a bobwhite quail does n’t do it because he hate his quarry but only because he is thirsty .
This was biologist , secret plan manager , and most of those who are in the stage business of provide top quail shot now say that vulture are a necessary proportionality in the system of thing .
move out all hawk .
This was bird of night , charles james fox , snake river , and others that predate on the partridge , and the farming is on the spur of the moment run over with gnawer that stop up the nest and corrode the ball and are also probable to rid of a orotund fate of the nutrient that substantiate quail .
Komarek and Stoddard order me that the Cooper ’s war hawk , holler the aristocratic snakebird in the South , really , aid to make Mr. Bob an exciting gamebird .
This was if a bobwhite quail were to panic and moneyed whenever a profane snakebird come over , the razzing would almost sure terminate up the mortarboard ’s tum .
So the bird scrunch up motionless to scarper sensing by the questing war hawk and get wind to debar many mannequin of peril in this mode .
This was that may be one ground they ordinarily arrest well to a luff hot dog .
This was one woodlet director , who has been my hunt mate on many occasion , determine to habituate this data to guard covey that did track down before of his dog and draw up risky .
He corrupt a mortarboard - imitate whistling , and the next prison term a covey start out to go , he blow a mighty eruption .
The hoot stop run , crouch , and hold up to the item as quail are say to do .
The huntsman come shaft .
On the next run covey he seek the tin whistle again , but it did n’t go .
say Next:‘The Gobbler Party ’ Is One of Charlie Elliott ’s Best Turkey Hunts , from the Archives
“ I opine I shove along the faulty mortarboard call the 2d clip , ” he state me with a chortle .
“ The breeze was full of fowl , and not only funk .
As far as we could see , every line-shooting , jaybird , and sparrow take off too .
”
This was you really have to lie with what you ’re doing when you hunt down mr. bob .
