We always called them blue darters as well. Old 16ga long tom took out a pile of them.

I believe it. All the Great Depression survivors who shot every hawk they saw are now dead.

From what I’ve read hawks nest in April/May and feed chicks through June……I’m gonna say that it’s probably not just coincidental that the peak of natural lighting strike fire would occur back in the day during May/June….If hawks are busy catching the scattered rodents in the freshly burned area then they arent targeting poults in the brooding cover……just saying.

I think places like Jackson Co are accomplishing a real similar thing but maybe not quite as efficiently …….Its producing understory structure that’s good for nesting but doesn’t produce a boat load of poult predators…..Sure its producing some but not nearly the same density as something like these out of balance grass prairies…..At the end of the day it would seem like this would be one of the main goals of turkey habitat……Producing lots of good nesting while keeping the predator load as minimal as possible.

I think I’d rather have an area with nesting that was a 6 or 7 out of 10 that only produced a 3 or 4 on predator density than have nesting that was a 9 out of 10 but produced a 10 out of 10 on the predator load. Why?.....

Because lets say we have 150K acres of grass prairie scattered out in about 500K acre circle that’s running 2-3 times the amount of grass they should be…..which is probably not far off from the reality of this situation I’m referring to……That 150K that’s running a 10 out of 10 on predator load is not just impacting the 150K acres when it comes to hawks, owls, coyotes, etc……It’s likely impacting every property inside the 500K acre circle. So ERRRBODY is getting hammered by the swings in predator pressure……And with a 10 out of 10 on predator load you better have 10 out of 10 on brooding cover. In comparison the area that has a 7 out 10 for nesting but is only producing a 4 on predator load……The whole area has a better chance of being successful…..kinda like SW Alabama is probably doing…..

The pinnacle would be to create a 10 out of 10 for nesting that only produced a 2 or 3 predator load. I think if you could combine what you have occurring in Southwest AL with a fair amount of May/June burning that created a bunch of forb dominated brooding then you’d be real close. Add in a little bit of coon trapping and bada boom bada bing........

The more I’ve thought it out I think I may be onto something with the high and low variable areas of the map being either poult limited or nesting limited……Its just a theory and you know how theories go buuuuuuut……..

Look at it this way……Let’s say we completely eliminated nest predation from the equation….At some point every population would still reach a population limit…….But that limit would all be controlled through poult and adult turkey predation…..Virtually every egg would be hatching but the end turkey population would be determined by the hawks, owls, coyotes, bobcats, etc and wherever their density cuts it off……And as long as their pressure is swinging with the annual rodent variability…. then we’ll also see that same level of variability in the end turkey populations. So with no nest predation everybody would see the higher variability in this scenario.

Alright so now lets say we want to try to change that high variability in an area to make it low variability……Can you do that if the swingy poult predators are still controlling the end game?? What does it have to mean if we see very low variability??.....It would have to mean that poult predators are not the main controlling factor to population growth… It's being controlled by something that’s more constant….

Something like for instance in southwest Alabama….the amount of constant nesting habitat available year to year and the amount of constant pressure from corn eating coons that likely arent fluctuating due to constant food availability……Again population levels always have to stop somewhere but now it’s nesting limited…..That’s not to mean that there isnt good nesting present but rather nesting is what is defining the population cap…It’s not saying that nest predation isn’t having any variability either…..It’s saying that’s it’s at a distinctly different level than the rodent predators and that difference is able to be seen through the numbers……..

So if an area is putting out fairly constant nesting numbers each year and the end variability stays low then we have the flipside of the original scenario where “brooding” was the controlling factor ……Sure there is still always going to be some poult mortality on the back end after nesting but it would have to be minimal for the end variability to stay low…..After the more “constant” nesting has taken place the only way to change it to “high variability” would be to apply a lot of pressure from the swinging rodent predators. If the final variability comes out still fairly constant then that would mean they didn’t have a major impact after nesting.

That’s a lot I know but if it’s true then that really gives you an edge on determining what’s happening in different areas. When you look at which areas are which on the map it makes a lot of sense......In theory.

All of this is going to hinge on the actual variability in nesting pressure being significantly different in the variability in brooding pressure or rather the peaks and valleys of brooding being much greater…….that’s really what I measured…..which I think will be the case in our situation …..They would technically be on a different wave length

The hawks eating turkey poults are NOT the same ones eating rats, etc. I watched several Coopers nests for months from a blind as well as analyzed remains after fledging and coopers eat birds, all the time, pretty much only...



fixed it for you

There’s something like 15 different kinds of hawks and owls in Alabama…..If a hawk, owl, bobcat, or coyote will target a rat it will target a young turkey poult………Somewhere there’s a study that talks about how each different raptor tends to be honing in on targets in certain diameter size ranges such as a golf ball or baseball or softball ……That’s what their eyes are searching for…..It wouldn’t matter to them if it was a gopher rat or a young turkey poult

I imagine when they’re little bitty then pretty much anything would target a turkey poult but as they get bigger then the pressure probably shifts more to just the bigger hawks and owls and bobcats…There’s lots of different predator species that are going to target poults along the way though and the majority of those have base diets revolving around rodents as their main food source…..I read one land managers first hand account from the Chattahoochee Valley that said he observed red tail hawks being a significant predator of poults……

A blue Darter will kill a full grown chicken, duck, etc. Young turkey ain't any problem for that little bird.

There's a lot of trapping going on in Walker County .

If I remember right the study attributed Cooper hawks feeding mainly on birds to them having a very narrow size range for the prey they targeted……They were basically targeting that baseball size diameter of birds and that’s all……compared to something like a red tail hawk who had a much wider range of anything from golf ball to volleyball……If that’s true then it means there would be a fairly narrow window for which Coopers would target poults as they passed through that specific size range.


Just an example of what I'm talking about with targeting specific size ranges........

https://feederwatch.org/learn/artic...-and-coopers-hawks-pick-different-foods/


"Miller and colleagues found that Sharp-shinned Hawks took smaller-bodied birds, such as juncos and Pine Siskins most often. Cooper’s Hawks also took smaller-bodied birds, but they mainly took medium and larger-bodied birds, such as European Starlings and pigeons. Miller explains that a focus on different size prey may be one component that allows these species to coexist. "

Here's something else to consider about these raptors that are preying on mostly birds instead of rodents…….The main premise of what I’m getting at with the theory I’m presenting is that there is a higher variance, or bigger swings, happening in the brooding phase than in the nesting phase……The root cause of the swings with rodents comes from swings in rainfall……Its potentially possible that those rainfall swings also impact tweety bird populations as well and drive a higher variance in them just the same. Just a thought…….

Somebody may be thinking……”Well if rainfall is causing swings in rodents and tweety birds, couldn’t it be causing swings in turkey populations too and that be the cause of your variance?”……

Its possible but I doubt it’s the case except maybe on the really extreme years…..The reason being is that turkeys are very adaptable…..They don’t require something really specific for nesting or feeding……..They’re more generalists that can adjust much better than something like a rodent that mainly targets grass and “grain”……..Also, PCP is adamant that food is not even close to being a limiting factor for adult birds….

Here's the chart to go along with this idea……With this being the case I think it points to the importance of not only giving poults a place to hide but also the speed at which you can progress them through these most vulnerable target size ranges…..which goes back to our insect density conversation.

Yep, and MOST of those are insignificant. Red-tailed, Red-shouldered and Coopers are the most numerous throughout the State. Red-tailed is consistently reported as a small mammal predator. Red-shouldered are similar but also feed on amphibians and reptiles. Coopers are quite simply bird hawks. They eat birds and prey on little else. A simple literature review (or observing them in the wild) will verify this consistently and over and over. It has little to do with prey size other than Coopers prey center on Jay/cardinal sized prey and Sharp-shinned prey on mockingbird/sparrow sized prey. Coopers like to chase birds, catch them and eat them. They do it efficiently, all year, and in all life cycles and the young are fed birds in the nest. Prove me wrong. The number one predator of quail and turkey poults is coopers hawks.

Will "a hawk, owl, bobcat, or coyote target a rat it will target a young turkey poult", yep. Only one is efficient at catching them - Cooper hawks. The rest are highly unsuccessful. Its a LOT easier to catch a rat or mouse, squirrel or rabbit than a turkey poult, especially one that flies. Thats why bird hawks specialized in birds.

What about broad wings what is their preferred prey. I see them occasionally too
When the Coopers showed up a few years ago we lost all of our quail. Didn’t take long either.

Check out the first paragraph in this preview......Sounds a lot like what we have going on with the map

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3802016

“The amount of annual variation in reproductive success attributed to poult survival is dictated by the magnitude and frequency of annual fluctuations relative to the long term mean. If poult survival rarely deviates significantly from the long term mean, it will rarely have a significant influence on annual variation in reproductive success and vice versa”

If I’m understanding them correctly then they’re saying that if poult survival doesn’t vary a lot then its likely not a limiting factor.

If……I say if,,,, I’m understanding it right, to put that in layman’s terms…… its basically just saying that if you look at the little wave graph thingy I drew at the bottom of the “Variability Spectrum” chart…..then the severity of the highs and lows of those waves…that’s your “magnitude”…. ….combined with the frequency with which its having those big waves……. That is most likely indicating to you whether or not predators are hammering the poults……

If all this is true then you can look at that map and draw a pretty good conclusion about what would most likely be the best thing for you to do in your area to make more turkeys……If you’re in the red it would be to moderate poult predators and create more brooding habitat…….If you’re in the green it would mean that you’re somehow nesting limited….limited by nesting space or limited by nesting predators…..generally speaking. Keep in mind it isnt necessarily making a judgement of “good or bad” but rather just pointing at what dynamics are most at play.

All this taken into account……it would seem like then that the most optimal trend line we would want to see happen with a county if you're wanting more turkeys would be one that is gradually increasing over time with a small amount of variability …….That would be a population on the increase not yet limited or heavily impacted by brooding pressure.

Counties that currently appear to fit this pattern......

1) Walker
2) Clarke
3) Monroe
4) Chilton
5) Colbert
6) Wilcox