PA - Outdoors: Northern bobwhite is a rare sight

By Bob Marchio

For The Evening Sun

The Northern bobwhite, a bird of open woods and fields, has been part of an ongoing study by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and various partners. The detailed Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas of 2012 determined the bird was confirmed to be breeding in only 18 of the more than 4,000 state areas surveyed. A PGC population study is expected to be completed this summer.

Bobwhite is a species of greatest concern in the state's wildlife action plan. The Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, a Tennessee-based consortium of state agencies, conservation groups and hunters, dedicated to saving the bobwhite, says the bobwhite could be in danger of being extirpated as a wild breeding species.

Personally, I have witnessed the birds in the wild only twice.

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