The habitat of the bobwhite quail is very specialized, optimally including a mixture of several different features. Not only do bobwhites need food suitable for themselves and a safe area in which to nest, but they also require cover to hide them from their enemies. Whether you are trying to find bobwhites in the wild or raise them on your farmland, it is important to know the habitat in which they live, eat and raise their young.
General Habitat
Bobwhite quail thrive in what is called "early successional growth": a habitat that has been disturbed recently by farming or other human activity, and is just beginning to grow wild once more. A habitat with a mix of vegetation is required, including weeds, grain crops, grasses, shrubby cover and some trees. Specific types of plant life are needed for different aspects of bobwhites' lives.
Nesting Cover
For nesting, bobwhite quails require an open, grassy area. Bobwhites prefer to make their nests in long clumps of dead grass, left from the previous year's growth. If the vegetation is too dense, the newly hatched chicks will not have room to properly forage for food. The best grasses for nesting cover include bluestem, indiangrass, switchgrass and any other grass that reaches over a foot in length at maturity.
Brood-Rearing Cover
A specialized habitat for young and growing bobwhites is also needed. An area with sparse legume and weed growth is ideal, providing the cover the chicks need to protect them from predators, while giving them room to run about and hunt insects. Fields tilled in previous years, but currently left fallow, are the most likely to provide this sort of environment.
Covey Headquarters
This is an area of dense brush and bushes, providing a protective area for escape from foxes, hawks, housecats, and other enemies. "Covey headquarters" are so named because coveys of bobwhite quail will often spend large portions of the day in them, to safely relax when not hunting and feeding. Tall trees are acceptable in a protective habitat, but trees with lower boughs are less than ideal, since they impede the flightpath of bobwhites flying up from inside the bushes below.
Food Needs
Young bobwhites primarily eat insects, but adults supplement their diet with seeds and fruit from legumes, weeds and crops. A good habitat for bobwhite quail must be able to provide them with all these dietary needs: a covey of quail can eat over 100 pounds of food over the course of a winter.
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