Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

If you’re a waterfowler, wetlands and riparian areas are your hunting destinations…if you’re a bird hunter who prefers dry land, you’ll want to stick to the uplands.

04—The uplands are the grassland or savannah habitats that aren’t prone to being flooded.

Robert Perez is the upland game bird program leader at parks and wildlife.

06—The uplands are where you typically find some game birds like grouse, pheasant, quail—those sorts of species.

Among the birds just mentioned, quail attract the most attention in our state. Quail season started October 30th and runs through February 27th.

06—Texas is one of the few states where people flock to come and hunt quail, because we’ve got some of the last strongholds in our state.

Strongholds are areas where sufficient habitat with an abundance of bunch grasses exists.

20—So, the bunch grasses of south Texas and the rolling plains—typically blue stems, or Indian, or switch grass—what they call the big grasses of the great plains, and southern great plains from many years ago. Much of the habitat’s been replaced over time; we’ve lost a lot of the prairies and a lot of the savannahs, but where it still exists, and land use is compatible with that habitat type, we still have good numbers of quail.

Perez is cautiously optimistic about this quail season and we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

The Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Hunting: Quail Forecast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download