Weather Increases Importance of Delayed Roadside Mowing

[Rick]

MANKATO, MN - Delayed mowing of roadsides will be more important than normal this year as the cool, wet weather impacts bird nesting, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

More than 40 bird species, including pheasants, use roadsides for nesting from April to August.

“The late spring will likely impact pheasant nesting in one of two ways,” said Nicole Davros, DNR research scientist and pheasant specialist. “Some hens may have delayed nest initiation due to cooler temps and snow cover at the start of the nesting season. Other hens that did start nesting may have abandoned their first attempt due to the weather.”

It takes six weeks for a hen pheasant to lay eggs and hatch chicks, Davros said. If a nest fails due to weather, predators or human disturbance, the hen will attempt to renest until successful in hatching a clutch, although renesting clutches will have fewer eggs. A pheasant hen will only hatch one brood per year and will not renest if she loses her chicks.

The peak hatch for pheasants is typically the third week in June, but this year there will probably be a lot of birds still nesting in July, Davros said. Chicks need to be two to three weeks old to escape mowers or other farm equipment. By delaying roadside disturbances until

Aug. 1, most nests can hatch successfully.

If landowners are worried about safety, mowing a narrow strip adjacent to their mailbox or driveway shouldn’t affect nesting hens too much, Davros said. Most pheasant hens place their nests either in the ditch bottom or along the back slope, away from the road. At sites where noxious weeds are a problem, Davros recommends spot mowing or spot spraying for treatment.

Roadsides provide more than 500,000 acres of nesting area in the pheasant range of southern and western Minnesota. Roadside habitat influences local wildlife populations, including pheasants, teal, mallards and songbirds, especially in intensively row-cropped regions where there is little other grassland available.

For more information, visit www.dnr.state.mn.us/roadsidesforwildlife/index.html or contact the DNR Information Center at 651-296-6157 or toll-free 888-646-6367.