As mentioned those are Amish farms and they are still using horses and walking behind the plow. Corn is still big and there and all kinds of edges. Corn stalks piled up in teepees like before. No haybines, etc. Horse and manpower. Or Kidspower when you see a youngster wrestling behind a two-team. Can't ever remember seeing an overweight Amish kid visiting at the hospital. Most of the farms up that way are Amish and they all look the same.
Just an observation, in that the apparent same kind of farming held Birds back then.
They use those machines out in Kansas and the Dakotas and they have Birds. One advantage they do have is the fields are so big the predators have to perch way back on the road edges and perhaps don't have as easy access to Birds. Their winters are also harder on Birds than ours. They do have more CRP land to nest and hide in, so that is definitely a factor. Then there is definitely a lot of "salting" that goes on with the commercial operations.
Even places around here that are managed for Wild Birds can't get them to take. Something else is also going on. However, it takes Wild Birds to throw wild. I doubt you can get it done with pen raised and released Birds.
The Pheasant States have enough birds they can still flourish in spite of predators, weather, etc. They outproduce the losses. Here our Birds may have crashed to numbers so low they can't outproduce the predators and weather.
Those Amish farms may not have changed but what about the English farms around them? 50-100 acres of an Amish farm surrounded by English farms doesn't cut it for habitat. Even if it's a large community, I doubt it makes a large enough habitat block. I think I read that management blocks need to be 20,000 acres to have impact and establish wild pheasants. All 20K doesn't have to be suitable habitat but the block needs to be that big.
Most of my experience with the Amish is in Lancaster and Chester counties. That used to be the heart of Pa. pheasant country. They pull the equipment with horses but have engine carts to provide PTO power to run the haybines, round balers and other equipment. Down there, they take the first cutting of hay by about May 15th and harvest every 30 days. That makes nesting difficult if not impossible.
I agree that there are other factors at play, I just think statewide, the decline of habitat causes those other factors to have increased effect.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) created a LOT of suitable habitat for birds out west. It took marginal and highly erodible farmland out of production and planted it into permanent cover. In other words, the amount of 'good' habitat increased and so did the birds. A few years ago, corn hit $8 bu (it's about 3.50-4.00 now) and everybody planted everything they could to corn. Including much of that CRP ground. I think you'll find that bird numbers have come down also.
My 2 cents,
Dale
