Upland Game Birds

1
Upland Game Birds

• Laws, Identification, and Facts

2
Bird Biology

• What is Orinthology?
• Homiothermous?
• Ability to fly
• loss of teeth and heavy jaws
• Reduction of skeleton
• hollowing bones
• shortening of intestines
• air spaces in bones and body cavity
• positioning of muscles and major organ

3
Bird Biology

• Classifying
• started in 1735
• Carolus Linnaeus
• Swedish naturalist
• gave each animal two Latin names
• Binomial nomenclature
• Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus,
  Species
• Kingdom - A?
• Phylum - C?
• Class - A?

4
Bird Biology

• Note all Bird orders names end in -iformes
• Examples
• Falconiformes birds of prey
• Galliformes grouse, pheasants, turkey
• Columbiformes pigeons and dove
• Strigifromes owls

5
Order Galliformes

• Includes turkey, quail, grouse, and pheasant
• Birds are non-migratory
• Chicken-like birds with high reproductive
  potential
• LETS BREAK IT DOWN NOW!!!!!!

6
Rio Grande Turkey

• Common in Texas and northeast corner of New
  Mexico
• Clearing of forest, wasteful hunting, poultry
  diseases, and interbreeding with domestic turkeys
  damaged the wild turkey population

7
Rio Grande Turkey

• By 1890s, hunters and settlers had eliminated
  the Eastern Turkey
• By 1900, feral hogs consumed available turkey
  food and any eggs or poults they came across
• Wildlife biologists have made a considerable
  effort to restore the Eastern Turkey in Texas

8
Rio Grande Turkey

• Male Turkey is called a?
• Gobbler
• Head is blue-colored with reddish wattles at the
  base of beak and chin
• Bristly black tuft (Beard) hangs from the chest

9
Rio Grande Turkey

• Gobblers put on a show
• Mating Dance

10
Rio Grande Turkey

• Hen
• dark head
• Mottled, non-flashy plumage

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Rio Grande Turkey

• Sexing without heads to look at . . .
• Left feathers are Hens
• Right are Toms

12
Rio Grande Turkey

• Laws
• Unlawful to hunt roosting turkeys by any means
• tag take from another person
• use a tag more than one time
• using an incorrect tag
• A turkeys must be tagged immediately
• Sex ID must be kept
• Filling out the tag
• Tag from the hunting license of the person that
  shot the animal must be completed fully
• Month and Date MUST be cut out
• Tag anywhere on animal where tag is not damaged

13
Rio Grande Turkey

• Lets look at a tag

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Rio Grande Turkey

• Local bag limits
• Spring General Season
• Saturday April 5 through May 12
• Four turkey
• Gobblers only
• Fall General Season
• Nov 1 to Jan 6
• Four turkey
• gobblers or bearded hens
• Archery Season Sept 29 to Oct 28

15
Assignments

• Wildlife Management Book
• Chapter 15 p. 293-319
• Answers Numbers
• 1-12
• 1-10
• Finish Coloring Wings if Not Finished
• Continuing Order Galliformes

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Rack that Brain . . .

• What upland bird did we talk about before spring
  break in last class and what did we do?
• What do you remember about hunting liscense?

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Grouse

• Nine species in the US (from Canada south)
• Members include the lesser prairie chicken,
  ruffled grouse, and others.
• polygamous
• Males establish territories
• Raise only one brood each year
• What is a clutch?
• Burrow in the winter
• Generally classified as browsers
• Found in more arid grasslands of the southwest

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Sharp Tail Grouse

• Often called a prairie chicken WRONG!
• Lacks pinnate feathers

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Sharp Tail Grouse

• Females
• Right
• Solid feathers
• Males
• Left
• Striped feathers
• All tail wings striped

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Sharp Tail Grouse

• Head feathers also show a difference in Gender

21
Sage Grouse

• Largest North American Grouse
• Adult male weighs 6 pounds
• 75 of its food gives it its name

22
Sage Grouse

• Male feathers are flashier with more white
• Females are only tipped with white

23
Ruffled Grouse

• Often called a partridge

24
Ruffled Grouse

• Coloration serves as camouflage
• Blends with woodlands easily
• Strutting site gathering
• Have a drumming log usually

25
Ring-necked Pheasant
26
Ring-necked Pheasant
27
Ring-necked Pheasant
28
Ring-necked Pheasant

• Asiatic birds with very long pointed tails
• Established in 1881 by Judge Owen Denny in the
  Willamette Valley of Oregon
• Closely allied with agricultural lands
• Prefer open grasslands and cropland areas with
  brushy cover nearby
• Can be aged by spur length . . .

29
Ring-necked Pheasant
30
Bobwhite Quail
31
Bobwhite Quail

• Monogamous
• Raise one brood per summer, but nest many times
• Broods stay together throughout summer and
  usually join other broods to make a covey

32
Bobwhite Quail

• Often called the number one game bird of Eastern
  and Southern US
• They flush and fast darters
• Found in grassy areas
• One of the smallest upland birds

33
Scaled Quail
34
Scaled Quail
35
Scaled Quail

• Also called blue racer quail, blue quail,
  Cordorniz Azul, Cordordniz Escamosa, cottontop
  quail, Mexican quail, scaled partridge, top-knot
  quail, zolin, or Scalies
• Prefers desert areas of South and West Tx
• Mainly terrestrial

36
Quail Laws

• General Season
• Oct 26 2002 through Feb 23, 2003
• Daily Bag Limit
• 15 quail
• Possession Limit
• 45 quail

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Order Columbiformes

• Includes Pigeons and Doves
• Dove sometimes classified in songbird category
  instead of upland birds

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Mourning Dove
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Mourning Dove

• Trim and brown, small head and neck
• Tail is long and point
• Adapted more to human activities more than most
  native birds
• Prefer open woodlands
• Nest in trees , but will on ground

40
Mourning Dove

• Juvenile bird

41
Mourning Dove
42
White-winged Dove
43
White-winged dove
44
White-winged Dove

• Appears similar to mourning dove
• large white wing bands
• range from Southwest US through Mex and SA
• prefer tall mesquite and prickly-pear cactus
  brushland

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White tipped Dove
46
White tipped Dove
47
Hunting Dove

• Required?
• White-winged Dove Stamp End 7
• Allows you to hunt in any Zone. How many?
• North, Central, South, Special White-winged Dove
  Area

48
Zones

• North Zone
• Season Sept. 1 - Oct. 30 2002
• Daily bag limit 15 mourning, white-winged, not
  more than two white-tipped
• Central Zone
• Season Sept.1 - Oct. 30 and Dec.26 - Jan. 5
• Daily bag limit 12 mourning, white-winged, not
  more than two white-tipped
• South Zone
• Season Sept.20 - Nov.3 and Dec.21 - Jan 14
• Daily bag limit same as Central

49
Zones

• Special White-winged Dove Area
• Special Season Sept 7,8,14,15
• Daily bag limit 10 mourning, no more than 5
  white-tipped
• Regular season Sept.20 - Nov.3 and Dec.21 - Jan
  10.
• Daily bag limit 12 mourning, no more that 2
  white-tipped

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For the Birds . . .

• Other Info to Know

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Unlawful

• To hunt protected , threatened or endagered
  nongame species.
• To sell or purchase goods made from them
• Arts and crafts are a no no
• What are some protected birds??

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Protected birds/ Unprotected birds

• Hawks
• Owls
• Eagles
• And pretty much any thing else that flies along

• European starlings
• English sparrows
• Feral rock doves
• Can be killed at any time, and nest and eggs can
  be destroyed

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Other unprotected

• Blackbirds
• Yellow-headed
• Red-winged
• Rusty
• Brewers
• Grackles
• Cowbirds
• Crows

• All these birds can be controlled without permit
  when committing depredation on
• shade trees
• crops
• livestock
• wildlife
• health hazard

54
Bats

• May NOT be hunted, killed, possessed, purchased
  or sold.
• May be moved, trapped, or killed if inside or on
  a building occupied by people
• A person may transport a bat for the purpose of
  laboratory testing if there is a rabies concern

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Assignment

• Upland Game Bird Worksheet
• Read the Federal Guide
• write two facts about each bird in the book
• ID test next class. Will start fur bearing
  animals