2007 Pheasant Forecast
By Ed Gorman

Colorado upland bird hunters will experience an interesting year in 2007.  For the first time in since 1983, our pheasant and quail populations experienced the impacts of severe winter weather on a region-wide scale.  While there have been other major winter events over the last couple of decades, the SE Colorado blizzard of 1997 comes to mind, we have not seen snowfall or snow cover that enveloped the core pheasant and quail areas of eastern Colorado in many, many years.  By December 24, most of eastern Colorado was buried in 18-24” deep snow, and a week later, SE Colorado was getting pounded again, with an additional 3 feet of snow falling near Lamar and Springfield.  And differing from many Colorado storms, this snow cover lasted throughout the months of January and February, further challenging upland bird survival.  But survive they do!  A few days after the storms cleared up, large flocks of pheasants and small coveys of quail were easily observed in feedlots, windbreaks and plum thickets, standing corn fields, and wheat fields that had blown free of snow. Read the full story.