This past week brought perfect ice-making weather. It may not have been everyone’s idea of a great time, but for ice fishing enthusiasts, it was the kind of weather we had been waiting for quite a while. While recent seasons have been tricky, hopefully this cold streak will have the ice ...

Greetings TR readers, outdoors enthusiasts, and fellow conservationists. We are Emily and Joe Herring, the new (but hopefully familiar) contributing writers to this space occupied by Outdoors Today for the past 34 years. To be asked by outgoing writer Garry Brandenburg and the TR staff to fill ...

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 ...