A collaborative episode of the On The Wing Podcast EP. 278: Joining Forces with The Flush and Birdshot podcasts to talk Ruffed Grouse, is live. Listen now at the link below, or wherever you get your On The Wing Podcast’s, The Flush Podcast’s, or Birdshot Podcast’s from. https://bit.ly/4cuwYAW We’ve assembled a special upland bird hunter’s super show episode with Travis Frank of The Flush and Nick Larson of Birdshot Podcast for a conversation focused on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ new Bird Hunter Diary app and ruffed grouse drumming counts. Joining the conversation from the Minnesota DNR are Assistant Area Wildlife Manager for northeast Minnesota Bailey Petersen and Resident Game Bird Consultant Nathan Huck. Episode Highlights: - On the Wing host Bob St.Pierre kicks off the show with a recap of his recent visit to Washington, D.C. to moderate a panel focused on the idea of a North American Grasslands Conservation Act and to talk with elected officials about a new federal farm bill. - The conversation then jumps into Minnesota’s eye-popping ruffed grouse drumming counts indicating the highest adult carryover of birds since 1972. Peterson, a wildlife biologist, explains what those counts do AND don’t indicate for the upcoming hunting season. - Huck provides an overview of Minnesota’s new Bird Hunter Diary, what the state is looking to measure through the app, and how all upland hunters can help provide better data through citizen science. The Flush Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever are excited to introduce a new dual Women on the Wing Chapter in California. The Women on the Wing Wine Country Chapter will aim to educate and engage new hunters, as well as build a community of wildlife habitat conservationists across Sonoma and Napa Counties. Based in the San Francisco Bay area, this group will have opportunities to expose a new demographic to outdoor sports. The members plan to host educational learn-to-hunt events, as well as field-to-table gatherings where women can learn how to prepare and cook birds after a hunt. To learn more about this exciting new chapter, head to the link below.

If you read the Pheasants Forever Journal back-to-front — today is your day. August 13 is National Left-Handers Day in the US, and no one feels the scourge of the right-handed masses more than hunters and shooters. Our options for everything are limited, and shotguns are at the top of that list. Learning to awkwardly push trigger safeties with your thumb is a real bummer, but the pain of being a left-handed shooter is often shared by right-handed fathers trying to find a first shotgun for their backwards kid. And for 47 years, one gun rose to that challenge more successfully and reliably than any other — the Browning BPS. To celebrate National Left-Handers Day, read the blog below by PF & QF Senior Public Relations Specialist Casey Sill, outlining his left-handed journey with the Browning BPS. https://quailforever.org/BlogLanding/Blogs/Quail-Forever/An-Ode-to-One-of-the-Best-Lefty-Shotguns-of-All-Time.aspx

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Southern Plains Grassland Program has awarded a grant totaling over $618,000 to Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever which aims to improve wildlife habitat in Kansas and Texas. This funding will help private landowners address the dramatic woodland invasion of working grasslands across the Southern Great Plains. Head to the link below to get the full details on where this grant will assist land owners in Kansas and Texas. https://quailforever.org/BlogLanding/Blogs/Quail-Forever/Habitat-Strike-Team,-Landowner-Resources-Funneled-to-Southern-Plains-Grasslands.aspx

If you're looking to get geared up for the season ahead, now's the time! For today only, you'll receive free shipping when you shop the Quail Forever Store at the link below. https://bit.ly/4dAJnUK

Quail Forever was born on this date in 2005! Today, we celebrate 19 years of conservation successes and want to THANK all our members, volunteers, partners, and donors. In FY2024, Quail Forever met with 13,235 landowners to improve 704,580 acres across the quail range! Combined with 305,865 acres of restored and enhanced habitat through strike teams, prescribed burn associations, and habitat project contracting, the organization pushed the limits of its work into the 1-million-acre realm. QF also hired its first-ever dedicated state policy manager so we can be more effective closer to home, and have worked tirelessly to ensure upland policy priorities for quail and other wildlife are included in the next Farm Bill. Across the quail range, it’s imperative we plant and nurture the seeds for the roots of a better future. A future where we conserve America’s cherished uplands and work together to restore the critical, early successional habitat required for our favorite bird to thrive. #quailforever

Quail Fact Friday!💡 Did you know that all quail species typically only lay around one egg per day? So how do quail hatch at the same time? The answer is a fascinating one: after being laid, the embryo inside an egg pauses development until it reaches “physiological zero.” In humans, the term physiological zero refers to the temperature that your skin will perceive as neither warm nor cold and is around 80 degrees. For birds like quail, eggs that are cooler than their physiological zero will remain in a kind of suspended animation until they reach the proper temperature by being incubated by their mother. This is crucial for quail because they lay large clutches of eggs. It allows them to lay around one egg a day for up to several weeks, then start incubating them all at once. After the required incubation period, the entire clutch hatches within a few hours of each other, even though the earlier eggs are many days older than the last eggs that were laid. Incredible! #quailforever #quail #quailfactfriday