North Dakota Game & Fish experts continue to conduct brood counts; says shaping up to be a good fall

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – In this week’s segment of North Dakota Outdoors, Mike Anderson tags along with upland game biologists as they conduct their annual roadside brood counts for pheasants, sharp-tailed grouse, turkeys, and partridge.

North Dakota Game and Fish Department upland game biologists conduct statewide roadside brood counts each year from late July through August.

“We got about 100 of them spread out pretty evenly throughout the four districts. Basically, what you do, you start at sunrise. They are 20-mile routes. You drive slow, 15 miles an hour. You’re looking for any upland birds, pheasants, turkeys, partridge, grouse,” said RJ Gross, NDGF Upland Game Biologist.

When biologists drive these 20-mile routes, weather conditions need to be ideal to get accurate counts.

“A perfect morning for a brood survey, it’s going to be clear, calm, and there’s going to be lots of dew, wetness in the grass. With the grass being really wet, that brings birds out. They’ll be out drying on the roadsides, drying on fence lines, bales, things like that,” said Gross.

And when broods are on the road drying off from the wet grass, biologists get to work.

“Get out, clap our hands, stomp your feet to flush it up. And we’re looking for is it an adult, juvenile. And then we’ll look at how big are they? Are the juveniles half, quarter, full grown, depending on what time of the year? The four big metrics we’re looking for are the number of pheasants or upland birds per 100 miles, broods per 100 miles, the age ratio, the adults to juvenile, and then the brood size, how many are in each brood,” said Gross.

Biologists have been conducting late summer brood surveys for over 50 years and have collected a tremendous amount of long-term trend data.

“We can look at things all the way back to the soil bank years and going through CRP tracking, how the landscape has changed, how the pheasants and all upland birds reacted to these. And the biggest thing, this is what the hunters are looking for. Pheasant hunters, they’re looking at how is the production. How is it compared to last year,” said Gross.

And how are brood numbers shaping up so far during this year’s surveys?

“There’s still a lot of survey period yet, but I’m optimistic it’s going to be a really good fall,” said Gross.

The regular North Dakota pheasant season opens Saturday, October 7th.

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