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Outdoors Today

Teaching moments for outdoor adventures

Naturalists are folks who enjoy the art and science of teaching, learning, and encouraging people to engage and interact with the natural world of wonders. The big wide world and its natural systems of seasons always brings along with it reasons to enjoy, to learn, to participate in adventures ...

Oriole cousins with contrast

May 13, one week ago, was dubbed the 2023 World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD). This time frame has been ongoing for about 30 years to strive to help educate the public about the importance of migratory bird conservation efforts. It is known that over 100 species of birds nest in the Midwest. ...

Red-headed Woodpecker dressed in full color

The Red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) is one of the first birds any young person may learn to identify as their curious minds begin to notice birds. The sharply defined colors of its feathers make this an easy task. When flying, the contrast of black and white wings ...

Two toms taken with one shot

Tom turkeys, the wild variety of course, have been on the minds of lots of hunters this spring. Hunting for an elusive wild tom turkey can be a very addictive reason to be outdoors in Iowa during the spring. Tree leaves are just beginning to emerge, and mosquitoes have not emerged. Forest ...

Pelicans: graceful high flyers

Today’s featured creature is the American White Pelican (Pelecanus erthrorhynchos). This is a very large bird, all white, except for black wingtip primary feathers, an orange long bill with its web skin lower mandible is made for capturing small fish, and look carefully at the top bill to see ...

Pope and Young Club Convention highlights

Pope and Young Club is a name recognized in the hunting community for its excellence in promotion of conservation programs, support for ethical hunting using bows and arrows, and for their longstanding diligent record keeping statistics for qualifying animals entered into the record book. The ...