My kitchen calendar was offering the latest proof positive that time really does fly.  Even with Leap Year’s added day, the 29th of February had suddenly arrived.  Tempus fugit for sure!  I doubt that many will mourn the month’s passing.  For a lot of folks, the end of February marks the end of winter -- or at least
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With a significant snow melt currently underway, this year’s spring migration is pushing northward.  Canada geese, a handful of white-fronts, and bald eagles are the most noticeable vanguards of things to come.  While driving up the highway toward my home at Clear Lake, I spotted a distant eagle traveling in the same northbound direction.  Flying at an altitude of 30 yards
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One of the traits that sets white-tailed deer apart from all other forms of Iowa wildlife is the ability of bucks to grow antlers.  Generally speaking, the older the buck the larger and more impressive its antlers become.  Antlers have but one purpose.  They are designed to duke it out with other males during the annual fall breeding season.  Battles can
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There are a lot of good reasons to visit Iowa’s winter woodlands.  Listening to the eerie, nighttime serenades of resident owls ranks high on my list of favorites. As is the case with any outdoor adventure, being prepared is key to success.  It is, after all, the dead of winter.  Dress too lightly and you’ll freeze.  Wear too much and
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Sub-zero temperatures.  Drifting snow.  Winds gusting to forty-five.  Near zero visibility.  How’s that for a chilling winter combo?  But those were the exact conditions we endured last weekend when a major winter storm system bulldozed its way across the continent’s midsection.  I’m guessin’ there were a lot of Iowans who were wishing they were someplace else. A female
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PHOTO:  Ready To Fly – Like all peregrines, Aurora loves to hunt and will chase just about anything she sees.  Photo by: Carol Washburn If Jack Vooge had lost one more drop of blood; I should have called for a Medivac.  I was springing a leak or two myself, but my injuries were nothing
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The scene is timeless.  At the edge of a shallow marsh, two hunters crouch in the cattails.  The sunrise is fast approaching and a rising breeze is providing lifelike movement to the group of eleven canvasback duck decoys swimming out front.  Anticipation is growing as the hunters anxiously await the arrival the day’s first flock. An ancient canvasback duck decoy constructed
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North Iowans Pay A Unique Tribute to America’s Veterans Honkers for Heroes organizers, Zane Kantaris [front left] and Jason Hahn [front right] admire a Canada goose bagged by Vietnam veteran Gene Hockenson [right rear] of Plymouth while Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and two-time Purple Heart recipient, Matt Macke [left rear] looks on.  Staged last
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After catching his breath, the victor seeming none the worse for wear. While pondering my next move, the deer suddenly turned and began moving up the trail, leading directly to my stand. For Iowa’s 70,000 archery deer hunters, November is the grandest month of the year.  By now, the annual rut is slamming into overdrive.  Restless, edgy, and
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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 them
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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 –
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