Grey Partridge Chicks

Chris Rob

Well-Known Member
Not stalking related I know but as we do have some experienced keepers as members;

Saturday I saw 4 coveys of Grey Partridge on a farm I shoot over & they all have between 6 & 15 chicks!

I always thought Greys breed from April to June so am I seeing a second brood or do they sometimes lay later?

Chris
 
i have seen pheasants and partridge with chicks a few days old in september in previous years, the wild birds here seem to have done well with the lack of rain this time, even with a few more foxes about
 
peak hatching time for greys is ascott week , pheasants a bit earlier . These will be second broods , the first being lost to egg predation maybe due to lack of cover because of the dry spring
 
Second broods, they will have lost their first nest.

It has been a good year locally, although the small farm I shoot on is far from ideal partridge ground we have coveys of 4, 8, 9, 15 and 18. Would have been slightly better but one pair with a moving carpet of chicks behind them tried to rear them on a couple of open grass fields with no hedgerows or other cover and lost the lot to carrion crows.
 
Have not got the scope out to see if they're greys or red legs but we have a nice covey out back about 20 strong. In past years we have seen both Greys and Red Legs out there. We try to let them be and not have the dogs bother them too much.
 
Ascot week is the old rule of thumb, but the GCT were saying it was more like Wimbledon week for the main hatch nowadays.

I said in my previous post that we have far from ideal partidge ground (too many woods and hedgerow trees) but we have a few nice coveys of Greys, a few miles away from the farm is great partridge ground but few wild Greys. The difference is we don't release any partrdige, whereas the good open ground has alot of shoots releasing redlegs. IMO there has to be a link between releasing Redlegs and poor numbers of wild Greys.
 
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came across some grays last week no bigger than starlings I think they will be late brood after fisrt nest raided just before hatching.We also have some late pheasant chicks around :old:yes ascot week !!
 
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