2023-11-17 09:18:00
Recently I passed through rough grasslands bordering extensively cultivated fields with some weeds, and lo and behold: three partridges crossed my path! I hardly ever see partridges. I remember only three sightings in the Netherlands over the last twenty years. Partridges have become rare. They are one of those previously numerous farmland birds whose stands have completely collapsed in just a few years.
With its orange head, gray body, brown-spotted wings and black belly, a partridge cockerel has a beautiful appearance. Partridge hens are less colorful. They sometimes lay as many as fourteen eggs, and if there are insects, seeds and buds, partridges soon leave to multiply.
Shortly after hatching from their eggs, partridge chicks are already scurrying around on their chicken legs. They chase insects in bare spots between or under the plants. Adult partridges tend to roam the edges of fields or rough grasslands. They pick insects from the crop and in winter seeds and buds from herbs and spices.
And that’s where the shoe pinches. There are hardly any patches of flowers and insects on farmland, and if there are, they are usually mowed before they form seeds. In addition, any chicks can then be mowed to death. If they are not mowed, the vegetation grows so fast under the continuous drift of nitrogen that the chicks can hardly squeeze through. A more open wilderness also allows the sun to shine – nice and warm and good for insects. Dirt roads may also offer opportunities for foraging or a dust bath against parasites.
If we want to keep partridges, we have to provide variety: unsprayed fields, herb-rich shrubs, sandy places and both short and longer grass, which is only mowed after July 15.
As a young bird watcher I sometimes saw a hundred partridges together in winter. Now I see three and I’m happy with that.
Three times a week, biologist Koos Dijksterhuis writes about something that grows or blooms. Read his previous Nature Diaries here.
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#partridges #Fidelity