By Claude Jenkins Land Stewardship Biologist for the Alabama
Wildlife Federation Throughout the Southeast, certain bird
species associated with early successional habitats have
declined to historic lows. From 1980 to 1999, the fall northern
bobwhite population declined from nearly 59 million birds to 20
million birds. According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s
Breeding Bird Survey, bobwhite breeding populations declined at
an average rate of 3.8 percent per year from 1982 to Although
these declines have been attributed to a variety of factors such
as coyotes, fire ants, and hawks, the primary cause has been the
effects of landscape level habitat loss and degradation.
Declining population trends are not unique to bobwhites,
however. The loss of early successional habitats has resulted in
precipitous declines in unexploited bird species such as logger-
head shrikes, dickcissels, eastern meadowlarks, grasshopper
sparrows, and eastern king-birds. Bobwhites are adapted to and
require diverse plant communities for re