Gray partridge showing up in good numbers East Idaho News

Snow was falling as I was headed to check the ice on Ririe Reservoir when I noticed nine Gray partridges, huddled against the cold wind. Not blizzard conditions yet, but the windchill had enough bite to it that the partridges were using each other to protect themselves from the cold.

As I continued down the road toward the reservoir, I saw another covey of 23 partridges in a swale eating the spears of young fall wheat that had been exposed by the wind. They flushed and flew into a patch of sagebrush to find some protection from the cold wind.

Two days later, I headed out to Ashton to look for some sharp-tailed grouse and found a covey of seven partridges near the edge of Fall River as it runs down through the agricultural lands. They were in deep snow but were feeding on dried chokecherries. Near them I ran into two young bull moose, one was still wearing his headgear while the other had shed his.

Last week while traveling the Egin/Hamer Road looking for deer and elk, I ran into a large covey of the portly gamebirds making a living scarfing down weed seeds. By their tracks in the snow covering the sand dunes, they had been there for several days, harvesting the grass seeds before resorting to feeding on the weed seeds.

Tuesday while coming back from Idaho Falls, I saw several small coveys feeding on weed seeds along the railroad tracks. It seems like they are everywhere now that cold temperatures have become a normal occurrence, but spring is just around the corner.

When growing up, my family always called these birds, Hungarian partridge or just plain huns and all the people in Teton Valley knew what we were talking about. I did some research on when their name changed to gray partridge and I got a kick out of what AI said about name change.

“The Hungarian partridge became the gray partridge when the scientific name for the bird changed. The gray partridge (Perdixperdix) is the scientifically correct name for the bird that was originally called the Hungarian partridge.”

The gray partridge was imported from Hungary about 1790 and can now be found in the northern United States. It is a very hardy bird that can withstand bitter cold temperatures, but it seems like everything likes to eat them.

They live most of their life on the ground where they live on seeds and a few bugs, and they sleep and nest on the ground. This makes them targets for coyotes, fox, skunks, raccoons, hawks, eagles, owls and humans. Idaho has a long season for hunting them from September until the end of January with a liberal daily bag limit of eight birds.

Their life expectancy is under two years, but they are very prolific as each hen may lay up to 22 eggs. Each family may form a covey or join another family with whom they will stay together until springtime when it is time to nest. Then when you see them, they are usually in pairs. From the many that I have seen this fall, they have survived well with not too much snow to cover their food.

I have had a lot of questions about number of “hoot” owls keeping people awake at night. Folks, it is now the time for the Great-horned owls to announce their availability to others and they really don’t care about your lack of sleep. One person asked me how to make them stop, and I told them sawing down the big tree may help or they could move. They did not think that was funny, but it sure beats the devil out of hurricanes, tornados and wildfires.

Thanks Idaho.