Steven Lowe writes in the following:
“I’m a 20-year employee of the city of Columbus, Department of Public Utilities, Watershed Management Section. I’m currently responsible for land stewardship around the three drinking water reservoirs owned by the city of Columbus, and I’m also a non-traditional student in (CFAES’s) School of Environment and Natural Resources.
“Prior to attending my ENR 3400 lecture this morning, I came across the following article, ‘Ohio State Scientists Work to Bring Back the Bobwhite,’ and thought you might find my recent observation interesting. Monday morning, while conducting a shoreline restoration project at O’Shaughnessy Reservoir, I observed a covey of very healthy (plump) quail on the shoreline of the reservoir just east of 5701 Dublin Road.
“My observations were from a distance of several feet as they held pretty tight before busting out for parts unknown. … I haven’t seen a wild quail in the area in over 20 years.”
The northern bobwhite “is a sensitive indicator of ecosystem health in openlands,” says CFAES scientist Bob Gates in that article. “(It’s) just one species in a guild of edge-dependent federal trust species that depend on early successional habitats that are disappearing from much of the eastern U.S.” (Photo: Northern bobwhites by Steve Maslowski, USFWS.)