While not all legumes are created equal when it comes to their food value, more than 80 species of legumes have been identified within the diet of bobwhite quail. In addition, studies have revealed that quail consume a higher proportion of legume seeds as winter progresses, sometimes making up more than 70 percent of a bobwhite's diet by February.
Species including lespedezas and ticktrefoils are choice quail foods and heavily used when available, but trailing fuzzybeans, partridgepeas and butterfly peas also provide seeds that are highly attractive to foraging quail. Clovers are especially beneficial, as quail and other wildlife readily consume the leaves during the late winter and early spring when seed resources are more difficult to find.
In addition to providing food for upland game, legumes are some of the best plants to attract a large number and variety of insects that are so vital during the nesting and brooding period for quail. Beetles, crickets, flies, bees, spiders and caterpillars are just a few of the insects that are attracted to legume plants, and all have been found in the diet of quail.
Breeding female quail consume large numbers of insects to meet the protein requirements of egg production. Additionally, quail chicks eat a diet almost entirely of insects for their growth and development.
The key to managing for legumes is to provide a wide variety to help meet the needs of quail and other wildlife throughout the year. The table below provides important information in the management of legume species for wildlife.
LEGUMES IMPORTANT FOR BOBWHITE DIET
For answers to questions about improving habitat for quail or free technical assistance, including habitat evaluations, contact Scott Cox, senior upland game biologist for the Wildlife Department, at (405) 301-9945 or Kyle Johnson, quail restoration biologist, at (405) 684-1929.
For more information on habitat needs for quail in Oklahoma, check out the Oklahoma Quail Habitat Guide issue of "Outdoor Oklahoma" magazine (May/June 2013) as well as the Wildlife Department website, wildlifedepartment.com.