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Outdoors Today

Winter descended fiercely, wildlife adapts

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 ...

Find the right trees, fall colors persist

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 ...

Lady archer takes a buck

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 ...

Mammoth replica skeleton at State Historical Building

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. ...

Antlers are unique, no two the same

IOWA’s archery deer season is well underway. The bow season began Oct. 1 and runs through Dec. 5. Then archery season closes while Iowa gun deer seasons begin Dec. 6-10 and again from Dec. 13-21. Later archery season recommences on Dec. 22 and continues through Jan. 10, 2026. As of ...