If I had to pick one month of the year as my favorite, October would certainly rank high on the list.  October is the Gateway to Fall -- the final transition between summer and autumn.  While oak forests remain green; sumac, cottonwood, and maples are on fire.  For the most part, October skies are the
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                It's late September.  Skies are clear and afternoon temperatures have climbed to the mid-70s.  Right on cue, migrating great egrets are passing through Northern Iowa.  Currently traveling from northern   breeding grounds to southern wintering areas, the huge birds are taking a brief time out to rest and refuel.  One flock -- totaling a dozen or so
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Perfect weather.  Lots of ducks.  Happy hunters.  That's the general assessment for this year's Opening Day of the early segment of the 2013 Iowa Duck Season -- or at least that's how it shaped up in the North Central region of the state.     As always, our party began the opening weekend with a family campout; staged
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    My friend Joe Wilkinson and I spent a good part of our morning shooting waterfowl and wetland video in North Central Iowa.  Overall habitat conditions are excellent and every area we visited held ducks --mallards, wood ducks, even a few newly arrived pintails.  But the highlight of the morning came in the form of buzzing,
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  Showy and colorful, the goldenrod is one of my favorite fall flowers.  The annual appearance of the goldenrod's bright yellow flowers offer proof positive that summer heat and humidity are on borrowed time and that fall will soon arrive.  The yellow flowers also mean that blue-winged teal are already on the move and that we'll
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  It didn't take a trained meteorologist or PhD level ornithologist to read the signs.  With starry nighttime skies, daily high temperatures dropping off dramatically, and steadily freshening breezes, the message was clear.  Migratory birds would be on the move.  And for anyone who spent time poking around North Iowa wetlands on Friday and Saturday, the
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  Saturday morning and a large scale bird migration was in full swing.  I had hunkered into the soggy edge of North Iowa mudflat to enjoy the show as flocks of blue-winged teal, mallards, green-wings, pintails, shovelers, yellowlegs, and killdeer moved above the wetlands.  A good number of teal, killdeer and yellowlegs had stopped to explore
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  This year's dove season has been providing local hunters with some pretty good shooting.  But during the past couple of mornings, things have tailed off dramatically with fewer and fewer birds showing up in the usual haunts.  By early this week, it appeared [and sounded] as if most hunters had packed it in.  On Monday,
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            Northern Iowa's prairie wetlands have made a dramatic comeback during 2013.  Following two years of searing drought, improved water levels have led to excellent production of locally nesting mallards and wood ducks.  The fruits of those labors are currently on display as flocks gather in preparation for the fall migration. For the first time in decades,
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  The 2013 Iowa Dove Opener was accented by strong hunter turnout, unseasonably mild weather and, hunter success that ranged all the way from fair to excellent:  that's the official assessment of Conservation Officers across the North Central region.  Although mourning dove numbers were high leading into the season, birds were widely scattered and certainly less
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Black Hills pronghorns are known by many names.  Most Easterners still call them antelope; they're not.  Most locals refer to them as Speed Goats; still incorrect, though much closer to the truth.  But regardless of what you may choose to call it, one thing is certain.  The pronghorn is one very amazing creature.  Perhaps most
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    Late August and I'm sitting on a hillside in Custer State Park's southern prairie.  As is the case with most folks who visit this state park each year --- [1.8 million in 2012] --- I've come to see the bison. The timing is perfect.  The raucous all night revelry of the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is past, while the guided
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