Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.This year’s multi-segmented, multi-zoned Iowa duck season kicks off with a statewide teal-only hunt beginning September 6.  Although Iowa teal seasons have traditionally allowed for 16 consecutive days of teal hunting, the season […]

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.After a year of enduring things like weather, migration, and the rearing of youngsters, a bird’s feathers began to show their age.  The annual replacement of those worn feathers is called the molt. 

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.With its four-foot height, ear-piercing call, and six-foot wingspan; I think you’d be hard pressed to find a bird with more charisma than the crimson-capped sandhill crane.  After a century of absence, sandhill

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.Biologists with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources have completed statewide July goose banding operations.  This year, a total of nearly 4,000 Canada geese were successfully captured and banded, according to Orrin Jones,

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.According to Iowa’s state climatologist, last winter was the fourth least snowy in 138 years of record keeping – a real boon for winter pheasant survival.  The abnormally dry winter was followed by

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.            A Yellow-headed Blackbird, Of Course! With its bright golden mantle and jet-black body, it would be hard to mistake the yellow-headed blackbird for any other species.  An inhabitant of Iowa marshlands, the

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.Spring is in the air — literally.  Leaving their winter homes, millions of neotropical songbirds are now winging their way to northern nesting grounds.  For many species, the flight between South American wintering

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.Birding enthusiasts are always on the lookout for something out of the ordinary – a new or rare species that they’ve never seen before.  North Iowans got their wish this week when a

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.For Iowa’s wild turkeys, the lengthening days of spring bring on a dramatic change in attitude.  Gobblers that have peacefully spent the entire winter residing in close knit bachelor groups are suddenly defriending

Photography courtesy of Lowell Washburn, all rights reserved.A seldom observed survivor of Iowa’s historic past, the rare and delicate pasque flower is currently on full display across the state’s also rare native prairie remnants.  Pasque flowers are the very first