The Iowa River is an excellent example we humans can observe to help us grasp the intensity of drought-like conditions. The river’s water level is low and its flow rate is very slow, so at this point in an Iowa summer, that is not really unexpected or unusual in and of itself. Obviously ...

Wild turkeys made my day recently. I wasn’t particularly looking for these majestic large game birds. However, along a recently mowed fire lane at the Iowa River Wildlife Area, out stepped two tom turkeys right in front of me. They did not know I was close. I did not know they were close. ...

CWD, the acronym used to talk about chronic wasting disease, belongs to a family of prion diseases that are relatively new to science. Long-term consequences are not well understood. However, researchers in many Midwest and mountain states have learned a great deal in over 50 years of noting ...

Swallowtail butterflies are named by scientists to help identify and classify these special insect critters into certain similar characteristic groupings. One such family to which swallowtails belong is called Papilionidae. There are more than 600 species worldwide. In North America, the ...

Bison, scientifically named Bison bison, are big animals. They are a representative today of a vast history of almost innumerable numbers of these shaggy haired plains bovines that once roamed the native grasslands of the Americas. Their heritage includes a long list of ice age bison types, ...

Prairies are grasslands. We normally associate the word prairie to existing stands of native grasses and associated non-woody flowering plants that are part of the mix of diverse species growing in a setting dominated by grasses. They are the primary visual evidence of wavy seed heads and ...