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South Carolina landowner’s mission to restore Northern Bobwhite Quail

Just outside of Winnsboro, South Carolina, Northern Bobwhite Quail are alive and well on Hansel Hart’s land.  

Their whistles echo across his 245 acres of tall grass, forbs, shrubs and pines. However, despite his already suitable quail habitat, Hart is determined to increase their numbers and polish his land to perfection. 

“This place was a Motel 8 when I bought it,” Hart said. “And I at least want it to be a Hyatt.” 

Hyatt or not, Hart has made incredible strides in quail conservation since purchasing his property in July 2021.  

“My grandfather was a quail hunter and I always enjoyed having quail around. When I was younger, there were quail, it wasn't that unusual. Then suddenly, they just kind of disappeared,” Hart said. “Getting a piece of property that I can have quail on is a positive. I’m not sure if we're going to be able to hunt them, but just having them here is nice, just being able to listen to them.” 

For years, Hart hunted on his friends’ properties, and never owned land of his own. On these hunts he began to notice a transition in the landscape, from early sucessional habitat to woody cover. Early successional habitat is the beginning phase of a regrowing landscape, which is ideal for quail. Woody encroachment rapidly deteriortates the health of that cover, making for poor bobwhite habitat. 

Eventually, he decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. 

Hart purchased land so he could keep it in an early successional stage, maintaining dominant quail habitat such as briar and broomsedge — which also provides excellent cover for species like rabbit and woodcock.  

The upkeep of early succession, however, is no easy feat. Hart has worked tirelessly to implement various agricultural practices like disking, prescribed burns and herbicide spraying to promote the growth of native species and combat woody encroachment. 

One of Hart’s biggest goals was removing pine trees from the property. With the help of local foresters, he was able to implement prescribed fire to combat their encroachment. After just a few burns he saw a vast improvement, with more sunlight and open space for native grasses, forbs and shrubs to thrive.  

“It looked like the moonscape when I first bought it,” Hart said. “Now we're seeing rabbits, and there’s a couple of Red-tail Hawks that hunt out here all the time. You can tell that everything is coming back.”  

Amidst improvements, Hart wanted to keep the ball rolling. In April of this year, he sought guidance from Triston Kersenbrock, a Quail Forever Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) Farm Bill biologist.   

Kersenbrock has since been conducting a series of outcomes assessments, which document the effectiveness of conservation practices. Assessments are broken up into three phases — deploying audio recording units in the spring to capture data on the number of bird species in the area, conducting vegetation surveys, and then shifting back to listening devices for quail covey counts in the fall. 

Kersenbrock reported numerous bird species on Hart’s property, including Northern Bobwhite Quail. The land is suitable for bobwhites, which means the focus is now fine-tuning habitat improvements.  

Hart’s current dilemma — excess grass.  

Quail thrive in habitat that follows the rule of three, according to Kersenbrock. A third of their habitat should be grass, a third forbs and legumes and a third bare ground. At the moment, Hart’s land is about two-thirds grass.  

Though grass provides nesting cover, forbs and legumes are crucial for attracting insects for quail chicks to feed on, and later produce seeds for adult quail to eat. Additionally, shrubs offer necessary cover for quick escapes and roosting, while bare ground creates corridors for quail to move freely through their habitat. 

Kersenbrock said in order to balance these components, Hart will have to break routine. 

For example, Hart has always burned in March or April. Kersenbrock suggested he burn in September instead, which can help introduce different vegetation components. He said it was valuable to encourage Hart to think outside the box and deviate from the usual. 

Going forward, Hart plans to implement both disking and burning on his land in the early fall rather than late winter. He also intends to adopt a burn rotation, which will reduce the need for herbicide spraying. He hopes switching up routine will introduce more native vegetation such as Little Bluestem, Milkweed, Boneset, American Beautyberry, Yaupon Holly, Blackberries and even wild blueberries.  

“I'd love to have a stable quail population,” Hart said. “I understand I'm kind of an island in the midst of a pretty bad habitat for quail, but hopefully we can provide them a home.” 

Hart stands as a testament to what commitment to habitat restoration can lead to. Within a couple of years, he’s transformed an acreage of what was a pine tree desert into a quail haven.  

One of his favorite sayings is, “If you have quail on your land, then you have everything else.

This seemed to ring true as he pointed out a sandy section of his property that displayed multiple prints within inches of each other including deer, coyote, and raccoon. Seconds later, a brood of quail flushed just in front of him.

If you’ve got quail, you’ve got everything else.