Friday, March 13, 2009
Outdoors notebook: Quail site offers help
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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Virginia's newly adopted Quail Management is generating some interest among bobwhite fans, says the biologist who spearheaded the plan's development and will play a key role in its implementation.
And while Marc Puckett of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries notes that the plan won't officially be launched until July 1, the first day of the agency's upcoming fiscal year, he adds that it's not too early for landowners and others to get involved.
Puckett says a good place for landowners to start is the comprehensive quail section the DGIF has arranged on its Web site at www.dgif.virginia.gov/quail/.
"With so much to do out there, self help is a key," Puckett noted. "This site is comprehensive in quail management guidance."
For example, the "Getting Started" section includes information on evaluating habitat, as well as details about other organizations available for possible assistance with quail restoration projects.
Puckett welcomes the interest in quail. But the lag time between the Quail Action Plan's adoption and the official implementation is creating challenges.
"We are still short-staffed until the budget can be developed and people hired and trained," Puckett said. "Thus the publicity for the QAP is outpacing my ability to deliver right now.
"This Web site will help."
Habitat changes have contributed to a vast reduction in quail numbers in Virginia and many other states that once teemed with bobwhites.
The decline in quail populations has been matched by a steady drop in the number of quail hunters.
The DGIF's board unanimously approved the new Quail Action Plan at a meeting in late February, and directed the agency's staff to fund the plan -- at a cost of $1.4 million -- this coming fiscal year.
Time again for Tuesday night ride
The arrival of Daylight Saving Time brings the arrival another warm-season ritual.
The Famous Tuesday Night Ride got started for the season this past Tuesday, with roughly 50 riders turning out for the 20-mile course up Mill Mountain, along the Blue Ridge Parkway and back through Vinton.
Riders meet at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in downtown and typically start rolling out in small groups around 5:30 p.m.
The museum allows parking in its spots adjacent to the museum, but free parking isn't allowed in the large public parking lot.
The ride, which is held weekly barring inclement weather into the fall, started about a decade ago as a casual ride among a few friends, most of whom worked at The Roanoke Times.
It has since grown into what many believe is the longest-running, largest weekly group ride in Western Virginia, attracting a diverse group ranging from casual riders to hammering weekend racers.
As with the ride in the early years, many of the cyclists get together for refreshments after the ride, a tradition that helped the ride earn its unofficial moniker as the Beer Ride.
Because the ride is sanctioned by the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club (visit blueridgebicycleclub.com), helmets are required and non-members will be asked to sign a liability waiver.
--Mark Taylor
