RETIREMENT, for a second time, is a somewhat bittersweet moment. As many of you already know, my professional working career as the Director of the Marshall County Conservation Board began a long time ago, specifically on June 1, 1972. It was an excellent fit for who I am, my choice of ...

WOODPECKERS have unique habits that place them into a category of avian critters who conduct their life and food gathering abilities in similar fashion. Scientists place them in the family named Picidae. All have strong claws, short legs, strong stiff tail feathers to help them climb trees and ...

WINTER WEATHER did its thing last week. Mother Nature reminded us humanoids who is in charge. She orchestrated a big drop down curve in earth’s upper atmospheric polar express air mass. That current of cold air enabled a massive cold air bubble to collide with warm, moist air in a ...

FALL TREE LEAF COLOR may be mostly a thing of the past. However, if I was a biology/botany teacher, an assignment I would give to my students for a weekend reason to get them outside to explore would be this: Find a natural area with forests to do a walk about, and be observant to see, record ...

NOVEMBER MAGIC is what some deer hunters say about the first two weeks of the month. Deer rutting time is beginning to wind down a bit, but in the forested areas of Iowa, bucks are still roaming about in hopes of finding a mate. This ages-old format of the fall season for members of the ...

IOWA has a good number of ancient animal skeletons to boast about, all in the name of science. Since the entire northern United States including the Midwest had a host of glacial ice advances during the last 2.6 million years of earth’s climatic history, ice dominated much of the time. ...