Oct 26, 2019
I heard the ducks before I actually saw them. Not the familiar quacking normally associated with waterfowl, but rather the screeching “Who-week, Who-week” that is the signature greeting of a female wood duck. Sitting atop a downed log, I was huddled within the tangled confines of a shallow wooded swamp where the birds — eight or nine of...
Oct 14, 2019
I wasn’t until I was in high school that I saw my first peregrine falcons. Well, sort of. The birds were actually a pair of mounted specimens perched atop a fake, papier-Mache cliff ledge behind the glass window of a wildlife diorama in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Bell Museum. Although the work was flawless, the taxidermied birds lacked spirit...
By mid-September, the Iowa landscape was drying up. My favorite teal marsh was down to a depth of about two inches; many smaller potholes were bone dry. And then, with just a week to go before the Canada goose opener, the rains came. Deluge would be a more appropriate description; anywhere from 6 to 7 ½-inches in four days depending on where...
Dig your way through a few fresh gopher mounds, and you’re likely to find just about everything but gophers. Discoveries may include napping toads, salamanders, garter snakes, and an impressive array of multi-legged invertebrate wildlife. During early fall, the excavations can occasionally yield something a bit more exotic. That’s what...
Oct 5, 2019
DULUTH, MN. — In the dense evergreen forests of America’s North Country, the fall raptor migration is gathering a full head of steam. Pouring down from Canada, the flight includes birds of prey of all shapes and sizes from tiny kestrels to gargantuan twelve-pound golden eagles. Although the grand passage can be viewed from a variety of...
Born in North Central Iowa, Lowell Washburn has enjoyed a lifelong interest in the out of doors. He began photographing wild birds at age 10, and outdoor photography soon became his passion and eventually a career. Washburn is best known for images that portray migratory waterfowl and other wetland wildlife in their natural habitats. His best photographs are often obtained after spending hours floating amid natural marshlands, half submerged within the dark confines of a floating muskrat house blind.
Upon completing military service as a sergeant with the Fourth Infantry Division in the central highlands of South Vietnam, Washburn returned to Iowa in 1970. His wildlife photos began appearing in Iowa newspapers in 1971 and he began authoring outdoor news columns in 1978. Today, his photos and writing have appeared in over 50 national and international magazines including Outdoor Life, International Wildlife, Field&Stream, Ducks Unlimited, Pointing Dog Journal, the NAFA Journal, and others.
After working as a naturalist for Iowa’s county conservation board system, Washburn was recruited by the Department of Natural Resources in 1984. His primary duties included statewide communication with Iowa newspaper, television, and radio news agencies with a primary goal of increasing the level of public awareness and appreciation for Iowa's natural resources. During his tenure he also served as staff member for the Iowa Conservationist Magazine and for the DNR’s Iowa Outdoors Magazine. Washburn retired from the DNR in 2010.
In addition to wildlife photography, his ongoing outdoor passions include falconry, traditional bow hunting, waterfowling, spending time with hunting dogs of all types, and herpetology.