My moms property in northwestern Connecticut abuts 700+ acres of hilly, rocky woods and I’ve been hunting that area all my life. Most of it was never suitable for farming or even dairy but it was cleared and extensively quarried up to about 100 years ago. Very few open meadows and the partridges were never very numerous in my lifetime. But selective logging of the large trees has allowed in more light and opened the way for young saplings and brambles to establish. Partridge numbers improved. But when the forest canopy returned it choked off this food source and numbers declined -at least until the next round of logging. But it’s interesting to see the huge increase in turkeys. I had never seen one until about 10 years ago and now they’re about as common as squirrels.
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