March 20 marks the celestial position of our Earth on its orbit around the sun. We finally will get to the point where 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness fills our day, and the weather that day could be anything Mother Nature wants to throw at us.

In the long run, spring will win this contest. Humans will be thankful for the end of bitter cold conditions. During March, our day length went from 11 hours and 13 minutes on March 1 and will be one hour and 25 minutes longer on March 31. The 31st day length will be 12 hours and 38 minutes.

A sure sign of winter’s exit and spring’s arrival is ice breakup on the Iowa River. Any day now, river ice above Marshalltown may begin its breakup. Rain and warmer days will inevitably do its job of making the river ice unstable, weak and ready to move its crunchy masses downstream. Ice break up is never the same from one year to the next, but for sure ice movements can be benign or cause flooding.

Each possibility exists for us in 2022. Our history book entry of how river ice will behave this year will become known in a few weeks time. A typical choke point can be a narrow passage area, such as a bridge, or river log jam, where ice chunks accumulate, blocking themselves into a mass that will not easily unplug. When that happens, water flowing under the ice will cause the river water level to rise, and if sufficient, cause adjacent low land flooding.

Downstream from the Marshalltown water pollution control plant, warmer clean water discharges have already been just warm enough to keep the river free of ice. Ice free water starts at the low head dam just north of the plant.

Lots of local Canada geese and a few early migrating waterfowl (mallards) are using those open water segments extensively right now. However, if ice jams do create blockages and temporary low land flooding, that timing will fit perfectly with early waterfowl migrations.

Look for all species of ducks and geese to use temporary flat land flood water to their advantage. Species normally making stops in area flood waters include gadwall, American pintail, green-winged teal, blue-winged teal, wood duck, redhead, canvas-back, lesser scaup, buffle-head, and American merganser.

Geese will include Canada geese of several subspecies, snows, white-fronted, and ross’s. Listen carefully to all goose calls and denote the different tones they make when honking in their overhead “V” shaped flocks. It is always interesting to listen to and watch huge flocks of geese as they fill the skyways. That is a sure sign of spring.

Smaller sized birds will begin migration journeys also. Some are early and others will peak during the month of May. As for now, March birds will include robins. Carl Kurtz of St. Anthony, a legendary photographer, has photographed a fluffed up robin last month as it perched on snow covered tree branches.

Soon more robins will become common critters to see. Other small birds to expect in March are belted kingfishers, northern flicker, eastern phoebe, cedar waxwing, eastern bluebird, meadowlark, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, purple finch, and song sparrow.

Birds of prey (raptors) will follow the snow line north. On average, turkey vultures will be here by the end of March, perhaps a tad earlier. Red-shouldered hawks and broad winged hawks will follow. Marsh hawks and kestrels will be in the mix. We already know bald eagles are here, some sitting on eggs right now, and owls will be hatching their eggs by mid month.

Other March happenings to watch for will follow ice out in ponds, and lakes. Frogs, specifically chorus frogs and spring peepers will begin mating call chirps. If sufficient rain and/or snowmelt runoff fills temporary depressions in fields and along old river channel oxbows, those amphibians will let their voices be heard.

Forest floor vegetation will start to green up. Early wildflowers will push up their leaves and tiny flowers. Bees will buzz again. Fish will move upstream from winter holdouts of deep water. On the Mississippi River, DNR fisheries crews will begin netting operations for northern pike as soon as ice free conditions arrive. Northerns will be stripped of eggs and milt at fish hatchery locations, and other fish hatcheries will be netting walleye to do the same thing in Iowa Great Lakes country.

Another interesting wildlife encounter happened recently to a landowner who lives northwest of Albion. His automatic driveway monitor device sounded its alarm inside his house. This happened while several deer were in his front yard doing a bit of bird feeder station raiding.

The deer suddenly skedaddled out of sight, running away toward cover. The reason soon became apparent. A bobcat had strolled past the driveway monitor and set off the alert signal inside the house. The deer were aware of the bobcat even before this landowner knew the cause. His reward was he got a very good look at a wild bobcat. That is a rare occurrence.

Advice from an eagle: Let your spirit soar; See the big picture; cherish freedom; honor the earth and sky; keep your goals in sight; bald is beautiful; fly high!

Garry Brandenburg is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. He is a graduate of Iowa State University with a BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology.

Contact him at:

P.O. Box 96

Albion, IA 50005