Les Winkeler: Sights and sounds of an Illinois quail a pleasant distraction

One of the most common laments I’ve heard over the past two decades is the plight of the northern bobwhite – the quail.
About 50 years ago, the familiar sound of “BOBBBBB-WHITE” could be heard daily along any rural road in Illinois. The colorful quail flourished in pasturelands and in the hedgerows that separated farmers’ fields. Quail were so common, so verbal, my brothers and I considered ourselves quite the naturalists. We could walk along the barbed wire fence separating grandpa’s pasture from the neighbor’s cornfields and whistle something vaguely resembling “Bob-White” and eventually get a response.