Wildlife on Martin Family Ranch

One of the benefits of our rotational grazing system is the wildlife habitat that it provides. One day earlier this spring, I was able to photograph a ring-neck pheasant and a gambel’s quail. We have seen more pheasants this year than ever before. I hear pheasant roosters crowing virtually every day and we have one rooster and hen pheasant, dubbed Philbert and Whilhelmina by my oldest daughter, that routinely frequent our backyard. I attribute at least part of the increase in numbers over the years to the prime habitat we provide in the course of producing excellent forage for our cattle. We always have some paddocks with 45 to 60 days of plant growth which provides good cover and lots of seeds.

We also see geese and ducks as well as a blue heron on our irrigation pond. Raccoons, opossums, and skunks also are around and I saw a coyote passing through just this morning at first light as I went out to check cows. I even saw a pair of otters in our irrigation pond for a few days last year before they decided to move on. We have several species of raptors and also buzzards that show up in the spring about calving time to feed on the cows’ afterbirth. We have songbirds like meadowlarks and it is a treat to see the barn swallows, which like to feed on insects that get flushed out of the grass when I’m haying. Our primary objective is to provide high quality forage to our cattle, but it is nice to see that we are providing excellent wildlife habitat at the same time.