Although hunting for summer mushrooms may be a lot different than searching for spring morels, it can be just as rewarding.  Despite the fact that summer foliage is generally much denser than spring ground cover, finding woodland mushrooms can actually be easier in August than it was back in April or early May.  Spring morels, for
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It’s late summer and the signs of the season are emerging.  Right on schedule, this year’s crop of annual cicadas are making their appearance, and the distinctive ‘song of the locust’ has begun filling the sultry summer atmosphere.  With volumes exceeding 100 decibels, the ear-piercing trill is impossible to miss.  Louder than your neighbor’s lawn
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Brightly colored and sculpted to a fault, the cardinal is one of my favorite backyard birds.  But the bird currently sitting at my feeder did little to fit that description.  By contrast, this cardinal appeared dull and disheveled.  Happens every summer.  Having raised their latest crop of youngsters, adult parents began losing and replacing their
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Iowa’s five-segment, 2024 spring turkey season ended May 12.  Participation ran high during this year’s spring season with hunters purchasing around 54,500 spring turkey tags.  Turkeys were harvested in all of the state’s 99 counties, resulting in a combined statewide bag of 16,051 birds – a notable increase from the average of around 12,000 to
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For Iowa birding enthusiasts, the spring warbler migration is a highlight event.  Not all migrations are created equal, of course.  The speed, timing, and abundance of the annual flights are largely dependent on developing spring weather patterns.  Not all warbler sightings carry the same weight.  While enjoying and identifying the more common species, experienced birders
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Fast, nervous, and colorful, the tiny green-winged teal is one of my favorite spring migrants. Green-wings, more so than most waterfowl, utilize a wide variety of nesting habitats from small prairie potholes to remote arctic tundras and just about every wet spot in between.  But if you had to pick a breeding stronghold, some of
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The Iowa outdoors is full of surprises.  One of the latest occurred during early April when the state’s northern counties were inundated with colorful legions of northbound purple finches.  Purple finches are robust, chunky birds which are most often identified by the male’s rich, wine and raspberry colored plumage.  Females, also beautiful, are adorned in a
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Following a couple of hopeful but unproductive outings in Northern Iowa, I finally spotted my first fully bloomed, yellow dandelion on Thursday, April 11 – a full seventeen days earlier than last year’s first sighting on April 28.  A couple of friends also found flowering dandelions on the 11th, and we’re all pretty excited over
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The first segment of Iowa’s five-part, spring turkey season kicks off April 5 with the opening of the annual special Youth Season, followed by the first segment of the regular hunting seasons on April 8.  The season’s fourth and final segment runs until May 12.  For outdoor enthusiasts, there are plenty of season choices and
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The annual northward migration of the lesser snow goose ranks as one of creation’s most awe-inspiring events.  Heading toward ancestral breeding grounds in arctic Canada, goose flocks containing tens of thousands of birds are currently making their way up the flyways.  Although Iowa snow goose numbers generally don’t peak until around mid-March, this year’s mild
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Popular, challenging, and nutritious, the white-tailed deer is one of Iowa’s most treasured natural resources.  I love watching, hunting and, yes, consuming our nation’s most popular big game animal.  But when Iowa’s deer seasons end in January, there is always one deer that I hope has survived another year.  That deer is a beautiful doe
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Sub-zero temperatures.  Winds gusting in excess of thirty miles per hour.  Drifting snow.  Near zero visibility.  Dangerous wind chills.  Not a pretty picture for most Iowans.  But those were the exact conditions that occurred when a good old-fashioned blizzard roared through Iowa last weekend. Looking through the glass of my cozy dining room window, I wondered
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