I think Jent is on the money with his theory. When I was a teenage quail hunteer, (early 60's) we had lots of quail in Georgia and no fireants. Now we have plenty of fire ants and no quail. I watched a report on a nature tv show recently that involved a situation in Oklahoma. Seems that a certain species of song bird had almost disappeared from an area near Ft. Sill. Surveillance cameras were set up to cover several nests containing unhatched eggs. As soon as the eggs hatched, the newborn chicks were covered in fire ants and of course immediately killed. If that can happen in a nest in a tree, a quail doesn't have a chance. In Georgia and elsewhere in the south (and probably in other areas) fire ants are completely out of control. Drive by a field that has been recently burned over and the fire ant mounds are so numerous they look like an indian village. Too bad our government and the various quail organizations can't seem to muster the effort necessary to have an effect on the populations.
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