It is difficult to imagine, but there was a time when Connecticut was mostly open pasture, and woodlands were virtually nonexistent. While most wildlife declined or became locally extinct then, some species flourished. The northern bobwhite was one that prospered: it nested within overgrown weedy fencerows and sapling-covered waysides.

The early naturalists of the 1700s and 1800s wrote about the call of the bobwhite filling the Connecticut countryside, but by the 1900s, the familiar whistle of the bobwhite began to fade as agriculture was abandoned and woodlands returned. Certainly, by 1940, the boom of bobwhite was over, but with some agricultural land sill in use, the bird managed to live on in modest but viable numbers.

When I was a child, I had a surprise encounter with a bobwhite covey: while walking a woodland trail during a squall, several exploded into a thunderous flight directly before me. They flew in all directions, swirled around me, then spiraled upward into a vortex. Sunlight gilded their speckled breasts and turned their brown wings golden as they ascended, through falling snow, into the cold ether.

This experience lasted only moments, but its memory has endured a lifetime. Today, almost anyone who knows this quail, knows it in memory. The covey I encountered may have been farm raised or intentionally released; but there are those older than I, senior citizens, who tell of the days when the woodland edges still held coveys that were definitely wild bobwhites.

Somewhere between 1970 and 1980, the last truly wild bobwhite sang its bobwhite whistle call in Connecticut for the very last time. The old timers talk of hunting the bobwhite and the thrill of flushing a covey before them with their dogs. They reminisce about the quail’s sharp whistle call coming from the brushy edges out beyond the farmhouse among the brambles. It spoke of a different time, a day when we were still rural, before modern farming styles and suburban sprawl.

Although the bobwhite slipped away from us largely unnoticed, efforts were made to restore them back into the state. Captive bred birds were released in choice locations in the hope that they would breed and repopulate; however, these birds proved to lack the survival instincts and quickly died out. This same method was initially used to reintroduce the wild turkey, and it produced the same result. Later, wild pre-European era descendent relic turkeys were trapped and transferred from nearby states, then released into Connecticut.

Obviously, this program was a complete success, and now the wild turkey is thriving. Today, wild turkey hunting is a billion-dollar industry, and in this state alone, it has brought millions into the economy. Surprisingly, a similar trap-and-transfer plan will not be attempted for bobwhite because their preferred habitat, open brushy country, is not common.

Fortunately, you can still find a wild northern bobwhite on Cape Cod. There, within the pitch pine woodland edges, the bird continues to whistle out its name sake — bob white, bob white. Perhaps the bobwhite will not be ours to enjoy ever again — but will endure as a unique experience and living symbol of a more innocent time — on distant horizons.

Robert Tougias is a Colchester birding author. You can ask him questions at rtougias@snet.net.