N.J. helping quail make comeback

WOODLAND TOWNSHIP — In a forest clearing on a large cranberry farm, field technicians with New Jersey Audubon used electronic equipment to search for bobwhite quail.

The wild birds from Georgia were banded with electronic collars and released in the past two years, and a bobwhite nest was found earlier at the site, tucked inside tall grasses on a mound of topsoil.

It isn’t the prettiest or most natural part of Pine Island Cranberry Co.’s 14,000 non-cultivated acres in and around the Burlington County hamlet of Chatsworth. There are compost piles at the site, and a small airfield for agricultural planes.

But it’s the kind of disturbed habitat the bobwhite and other species, like prairie warblers, kestrels and pine snakes, love.

Read more about the NBCI member state’s project HERE.