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 normal spring rainfall and favorably warm [average] spring temperatures.
“Given the statewide weather information, we are expecting a good nesting effort and pheasant populations will likely be higher for the 2025 hunting season,” says DNR Upland Wildlife [pheasant] Biologist, Todd Bogenschutz.
Beginning next month, the DNR will conduct its annual August roadside wildlife surveys, which – when combined with winter and spring weather data — is considered to be the most reliable indicator of what hunters can expect when fall seasons begin. This year, wildlife biologists began receiving reports of pheasant hens with broods of chicks as early as mid-May. The peak of the Iowa pheasant hatch normally occurs during the last week of May and first half of June. Although heavy July rains have recently swept the state, the majority of those weather events occurred after birds had hatched and were off the nest.
“Whenever we have early nesting years, we typically have the highest number of chicks, and it certainly looks like 2025 will be an early nesting year. I expect that there will likely be regional differences, but that we will hopefully see an increase in all survey regions,” said Bogenschutz.
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