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Mothers who happen to be backyard birders received the ultimate gift Sunday courtesy of none other than Mother Nature, herself.

In a rare and coincidental but serendipitous alignment of timing between the migration of neotropical songbirds from Central and South America and thunderstorms rolling through on Saturday night into Sunday morning, Central Iowans experienced what’s known in birding circles as a “fallout.” Simply put, a fallout is a natural occurrence where migratory birds are forced down by adverse weather in a way that makes them congregate in large numbers.

What that meant for those prepared and fortunate souls who had their feeders full, and even many who didn’t, was they awoke Sunday morning to a euphonic panoply of some of the most beautiful birds on the planet. This was avian nirvana and nothing short of stupendous.

Our small and sheltered backyard in north Ames was teeming with a salubrious smorgasbord of tropical visitors from some of the Western Hemisphere’s most tantalizing locales: the Andes Mountains, Yucatan Peninsula, Costa Rica and islands in the Caribbean Sea. Feeders offering black oil sunflower and safflower seeds, peanuts, tree nuts, dried fruit and grape jelly were overwhelmed by dozens of rose-breasted grosbeaks and Baltimore orioles, and smaller numbers of orchard orioles, gray catbirds and Swainson’s thrushes. Other common local birds competing for spots at the feeding stations when they saw an opening included cardinals, robins, house finches, blue jays, black-capped chickadees, European starlings, Carolina wrens, house sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves, white-breasted nuthatches and downy woodpeckers.

Along nearby rivers and more thickly wooded areas friends reported seeing dramatic numbers of warblers, such as Tennessee, Nashville, black and white, yellow, Blackburnian, chestnut-sided, magnolia, palm and orange-crowned among others, as well as a variety of kinglets, vireos and flycatchers.

On Monday, the frenetic activity of feeding grosbeaks and orioles in our backyard continued, and the list of intriguing species grew with the appearances of a brightly colored male indigo bunting (a rarity in our yard through the years) and a male and female scarlet tanager pair (also an uncommon visitor to the yard). If you’ve ever seen a male scarlet tanager with its electric blood-red body and jet-black wings, you likely haven’t forgotten it. They’re one of the most gorgeous birds you’ll ever see in this part of the world.

With strong southerly winds pushing through the area on Tuesday, the stream of migrants showing up at the feeders in our yard dropped off dramatically with the majority of birds from the previous two days presumably taking advantage of a significant tailwind to continue on their northerly migration. A few orioles and grosbeaks made stops at the seed and jelly feeders, but by then the majority of visits to feeders were being made by local birds in the process of setting up nesting territories of their own.

By Wednesday, just a handful of grosbeaks and orioles were seen hanging around our yard (although a couple of ruby-throated hummingbirds made appearances late in the day), leaving us with a somber reminder of the intensity and relative brevity of the spring songbird migration. But we will never forget the two glorious days we were inundated with a deluge of neotropical birds in what will be remember as the Magnificent Mother’s Day Migration.

By Todd Burras

One morning earlier this week I put up a new birdhouse. Within minutes of it being set up, Stephanie hollered to let me know a black-capped chickadee was perched on top of the structure’s roof, inspecting the new housing addition to the backyard.
That’s how it is outdoors during these natal days of spring: there are things happening everywhere one looks. Bees buzzing. Cardinals courting. Daffodils stretching out of the dirt toward the warming sun. That’s the nature of nature. It’s always dynamic and never static. Even in the dregs of winter when many of us seemingly shut down for days and weeks at a time, nature keeps on keeping on – changing, evolving, living. Still, when spring arrives, those changes seem to be more abundant, accelerated and evident.

That’s what I experienced during a walk off the beaten track at Ada Hayden Heritage Park a few days ago. Of course there were robins hopping all along the trail and in seemingly every tree and bush, just like there have been in nearly every yard across the city during the past two weeks. A flock of goldfinches flew overhead and Canada geese, mallards, ring-necked ducks and hooded mergansers came and went at a dizzying pace. American tree sparrows flitted among branches on trees that revealed swelling buds in the light of the sunny day.

It was once I left the gravel path and headed through the dense prairie plants on my way to get a closer look at some of the small wetlands on the west side of the park, however, that things got a bit more interesting. In each shallow-water cell I inspected, I counted dozens of dead fishing floating along the shores and on the mudflats.
“We often see a winter kill on carp, which is good,” said Erv Klaas, professor emeritus of animal ecology at Iowa State University. “I wish we could eradicate carp; they are not good to have in the wetlands.”

Common carp can overwhelm shallow lakes and wetlands by continuously stirring up the first trophic level. The constant movement of the bottom-feeding carp produces wave action that dislodges the root systems of healthy aquatic plants and also creates turbid water that prevents the germination of seeds and limits the amount of sunlight young plants can gather, thereby preventing them from growing. Essentially, carp can kill a healthy-functioning aquatic ecosystem.

Another resident making small – at this time – alterations to the park is the beaver. Or, in this case, a family of beavers. Evidence of their presence can be seen in numerous places around the park.

“Yes, the beaver are taking down a few trees but nothing of much value at the moment,” Klaas said. “If they start chewing on big cottonwoods along trails the city puts wire around the trunk to discourage them.”

In the past couple years, beavers have focused most of their gnawing energy on the stands of willows that encircle most of the small wetlands. They’ll be allowed to call the park home for the foreseeable future.

“The city relies on the Friends of Ada Hayden Heritage Park group to advise them on management issues, and, right now, we are not advocating any active management of beaver except to let them along unless they cause problems,” Klaas said.

So while the beavers can stay, some plants need to go.

“The Friends group plans to bring back ‘Goats on the Go’ this summer to attack the honeysuckle in the savanna (on the southeast side of the park),” he said. “I think the city will bring back the Conservation Corps this spring to work on eradicating Siberian elm, as well.”

Whether it’s a favorite city park or your own front or backyard, spring is a time of dynamic change in the outdoors. Slow down a bit and keep your eyes peeled. You never know what you might see.

Todd Burras can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com.

By Todd Burras

SOMEWHERE IN NEBRASKA – A pair of long, gray shafts sliced through the gunpowder-colored sky like one could imagine a couple of arrows released by Pawnee or Lakota warriors might have some 200 years ago.
The two flew straight and true despite cutting through a hellacious headwind out of the west that pounded vehicles – even overturning a semi and trailer in the middle of the east-bound lanes at one spot — and prompted travel advisories farther north because of accompanying snow squalls.
This was an overcast morning early last week with sustaining winds of nearly 40 mph near Kearney in south-central Nebraska, a small city of some 35,000 people living in Buffalo County near the Platte River. For those that have traveled that way, Kearney might be memorable, if for no other reason, than it’s home to The Archway, a unique pioneer and Native American museum that stretches over Interstate 80.
Kearney is in the heart of Nebraska, and by extension, one of the primary outposts of a sort of transcontinental thoroughfare that’s connected the East and the West coasts for centuries. This is a corridor that’s seen Plains Indians on ponies, soldiers on horseback and European settlers in covered wagons. This is a landscape that served the Oregon and Mormon Trails, the Pony Express, the Union Pacific Rail Road and the Lincoln Highway.
Today, Kearney and its surrounding land of sand hills is home to cattle feedlots, no-till cropland, irrigation systems, an endless connection of barbed wire fencelines, prairie hawks, tumbleweeds, cottonwoods, coyotes and antelope.
For a couple weeks each spring, it’s also a Mecca of sorts for birders from around the Midwest and beyond as millions of birds in the Central Flyway follow a portion of the Platte River on their way to breeding grounds farther north. This is an area where anyone from the keenest birder to the average traveler driving the interstate can spy huge flocks of red-winged blackbirds and gulls, rafts of mallards and pintails, and waves of snow geese mile after mile after mile. In a society that’s been hijacked linguistically by the abuse of hyperbole, “spectacle,” in fact, is truly the only word that accurately attempts to describe the simultaneous movement of millions of waterfowl and other birds.
As interesting or not as any of that is to unsuspecting passersby, it’s the arrival from Mexico, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona of the big gray birds, like those first two we spotted straining against the elements, that people come from great distances to see. The real stars of this Great Plains and Platte River party are the Sandhill cranes.
Every spring from about mid-February through early April the Platte River Valley serves as a major stopover site for hundreds of thousands of Sandhill cranes. The giant birds, among the largest in North America with their 7-foot wingspans, spend several weeks here, feeding during the day on waste grain, snails and earthworms in cornfields and wet meadows and resting in the shallow waters of the Platte River at night. This period of staging prepares them for the next leg of their journeys as they head for breeding grounds across the northern United States, Canada and Siberia.
Cranes are among the oldest living birds on the planet, and their history in this stretch of Nebraska is so old it even predates the existence of the Platte River itself. Fossil records show that Sandhill cranes were in what is present-day Nebraska some 9 million years ago. The Platte River? It’s been flowing for about 10,000 years.
On the way to Colorado, most of the cranes, as well as virtually all the other birds we saw, were grounded by the high winds. Huge flocks of cranes hunkered down in fields with only an occasional bird doing its extravagant courting ritual of bowing, jumping and wing flapping. A few days later, however, on the return trip to Iowa, dozens of kettles of birds could be seen soaring above fields in small flocks while on the ground thousands more strutted, preened and generally showed off for one another.
According to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, each crane stays in the area for approximately four weeks before catching the right thermal and heading for its pre-determined breeding ground. It doesn’t take them long to get where they’re going, either. Cranes can travel up to 500 miles on a good day, although 200 to 300 miles is more common.
If you’re outdoors this week and happen to see a pair of slender gray shafts streaking across the sky, look closely. You might be seeing a pair of Sandhill cranes on their way to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan or points farther north.
The spring migration is underway. Whether you’re in central Iowa, south-central Nebraska or somewhere else, enjoy it.

Todd Burras can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com.

By Todd Burras

^

March is a time of blooming flowers, birds in bright breeding plumage, cute baby animals and dramatic cloud formations.

All are part of the natural world’s transition from winter to spring, and all are possible focal points of a camera lens.

Photos can now be submitted to Story County Conservation for its annual photo contest, which is open to amateur photographers only.

Any photos of nature and recreational activities from spring or any other time of the year are open to submission and will be judged based on these categories: landscape (within Story County Conservation parks and areas and may include structures); flora and fungi (micro or macro); fauna (micro or macro); or connecting people and recreation.

There will be youth and adult categories — age 18 and younger and 19 and older — and each photographer may submit up to three entries.

Landscape and connecting people and recreation photos must originate from Story County while fora and fauna photos can be taken outside the county.

Spring is here and nature is burgeoning. Get outdoors with your camera or smartphone and start photographing some of its wonders.

• • •

Springtime means one thing to thousands of Iowans who enjoy dressing up in camouflage and skulking around in woodlots and forest edges: turkey hunting.

A series of dates makes up the state’s six-week spring turkey season, and some hunters are already doing some scouting to get a bead on where the hens roost at night and where the toms are strutting during the day.

This year’s season breaks down as follows:

* Youth — April 7-15

* Archery — April 16-May 20

* Season 1 — April 16-19

* Season 2 — April 20-24

* Season 3 — April 25-May1

* Season 4 — May 2-20

As winter loosens its grip and the days get longer, male turkeys will begin gobbling in preparation for the mating season. If you’re one of the some 40,000 turkey hunters in the state, now’s a good time to spend some time outdoors familiarizing yourself with the habits of toms in the areas you plan to hunt.

And don’t forget to pick up your 2018 hunting license and turkey tag in the meantime.

• • •

If you are a youth who wants to hunt this spring or are looking ahead to autumn but you haven’t completed the state’s mandatory hunter education class, one is available later this month at the Ames Izaak Walton League chapter house on Stagecoach Road.

A team of experienced and certified volunteer instructors and Iowa Department of Natural Resources conservation officers will lead the 13-hour course.

Class times will be from 6 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, March 27 and 29, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 31. In order to receive certification, a student must attend all sessions and pass the final exam.

Iowa law requires anyone born after Jan. 1, 1972, must be certified in hunter education before they are eligible to purchase an Iowa hunting license.

To register or for more information, contact Jake Strohm at (515) 290-3729.
^

Todd Burras can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com.

By Todd Burras

Winter has passed; spring has arrived.

Not officially of course — that won’t happen for another three weeks — but in reality.

There likely will still be more snow to fall and shovel — maybe even a blizzard or two. Temperatures will rise in and out of the freezing zone, and on occasion we’ll have to drag out the mittens, scarves, heavy coats and boots. But one would have to have been locked inside with the window shades drawn not to have noticed all the spring-like signs emerging outdoors of late.

Earlier this week, there were southerly breezes that left me sweating even in short-sleeves during a long walk around Red Feather Prairie near Saylorville Lake in Polk County. The sound of trickling water as small creeks and streams opened up could be heard while the smell of decomposing leaf litter could be identified in the surrounding woods.

Then there were the birds. Oh, the magnificent sight and sound of scores and scores of different kinds of birds.

In numerous fruit trees in and around Big Creek State Park as well as along Eisenhower Avenue in north Ames near Ada Hayden Heritage Park Lake, there were dozens and dozens of cedar waxwings, one of the most handsome birds ever created. In some of those trees, the waxwings shared both the limbs and the bounty of berries with robins, cardinals and even several bluebirds. Talk about a panopoly of spring-time colors — it doesn’t get much better than that this time of year.

In the woods there were the usual suspects — woodpeckers, juncos, chickadees, nuthatches and doves. In the country there were killdeer, red-winged blackbirds, snow buntings, Lapland larkspurs, American tree sparrows, red-tailed and Cooper’s hawks and even a barred owl on a telephone line. In the trees along the shoreline of the spillway below Saylorville Dam there were mature and immature bald eagles while in the open water there were Canada geese, mallards, a male common merganser (dressed in his finest breeding plumage) and even five American pelicans.

Overhead, azure skies all week have been host to thousands upon thousands of migrating Canada and snow geese chasing the boundaries of the ice line across the Midwest. Trumpeter swans are testing the parameters of open water as well.

During a trip to Colorado last week, my wife, Stephanie, even witnessed hundreds and hundreds of Sandhill cranes flooding into Nebraska near the Platte River from wintering grounds in the Southwest. It seemed a bit early, but there they were, their long bodies and awesome wings drifting over the interstate in small clouds.

Yes, spring is upon us. Get outdoors and absorb this ethereal time.

Todd Burras can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com.

By Todd Burras

Unlike most people I seem to talk to these days, I don’t mind winter. I have no objection to bundling up and shoveling snow or chipping ice. I’m not opposed to needing to put on a stocking cap or wool-blended socks before I leave the house. In fact, I rather like the snow and cold temperatures. I say the snowier and colder the better.

It certainly didn’t start out that way. As a child I was never one who looked forward to a day off from school so I could go outside and build a snow fort. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about recess during the winter months, either. King of the Hill wasn’t my idea of fun. Neither were snowball fights or trying to catch a frozen foot- ball that was impossible to grab and often resulted in somebody getting a tooth knocked out or a finger jammed.

My preference back then would have been to stay inside where it was comfortable and reorganize my baseball and football cards for the umpteenth time that week or to watch reruns of “Batman” and “Gilligan’s Island.” In short, I preferred 70s and the sun’s rays to the teens and snowflakes.

I trace the evolution of my fondness for warm weather to cold and my appreciation for Warm Skin rather than sunscreen to our late Siberian husky, Kiana. Huskies, by berth right, are lovers of cold weather. They’re built to pull sleds in the Arctic, and they have the physical and mental constitution to do it with sustained vigor and gusto. It doesn’t hurt that they have built-in insulated coats that can withstand temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees below zero.

But back to Kiana. In her waning years — she lived to be more than 16 years old — we would watch her struggle through uncomfortably warm springs and autumns and fully suffer through hot, muggy summers. For her, the dog days of summer stretched from late March to early December. But when winter would come around and the temperatures finally turned cold and the snow flew, it was like a switch was flipped and the aching and lethargic senior dog would be trans- formed into an energized and rambunctious happy teen.

In a yard full of snow she would run and frolic, plowing snow with her nose and biting at snowflakes. On a walk around the block she would dig her paws into the sidewalk and pull for all she was worth. It was an amazing transformation year after year, particularly in the latter stages of her life.

It was during some of those snowy walks on the coldest of winter nights with Kiana that I, too, began to experience a bit of a transformation of my own. While walks in the spring, summer and fall were always pleasant and enjoyable, winter walks I noticed were downright invigorating. I’d leave the house after a day of work feeling tired, run down and a bit depressed, only to return awake, energized and happy.

In short, I felt alive.

Those final snowy experiences with Kiana prepared me for the past two winters I spent at our cabin in northeastern Minnesota where annual snow totals are measured in feet and temperatures routinely settle below zero, plunging frequently into the negative 20s, 30s and even 40s.

It was often on the coldest and snowiest of winter days that I would find myself on a remote, windswept frozen lake or on a forested trail miles from the nearest road, skiing or snowshoeing, thinking about Kiana, enjoying the surrounding beauty, feeling invigorated and alive in a way that I’ve discovered is only possible in the depths of a cold snowy winter.

I once heard someone say the blessing of winter is that it strips away our constant need and lust for more things and reduces life to the essentials of heat, shelter and food. That may be true, and I’d throw human connections into the mix as well.

I’m happy to once again be back in central Iowa, but I do miss the peace and solitude and simplicity that accompany deep cold.

If it’s going to be winter, it just as well snow … and snow … and snow.

Todd Burras can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com.

By Todd Burras

My path with Joyce Hornstein first crossed on a sunny spring day some 15 years ago at Richard W. Pohl Memorial Preserve, or more commonly known as Ames High Prairie. A few years earlier I had rebooted the weekly outdoors page for the Tribune, continuing a tradition that had been established and sustained for nearly four decades by Olav Smedal, and there on a verdant plant-covered slope I stood hoping to learn a few things about prairies and, more specifically, prairie plants.

A few years earlier, I had rebooted the weekly out- doors page for the Tribune, continuing a tradition that had been established and sustained for nearly four decades by Olav Smedal, and there on a verdant plant-covered slope I stood hoping to learn a few things about prairies and, more specifically, prairie plants.

I had recently completed a master conservationist class with Story County Conservation where one evening we’d spent an hour or so with Tom Rosburg, a Drake University professor or ecology and botany, who had class participants down on all fours counting the number of different plant species we could identify based solely on the visual differences of the plants we could see.

It was one of those notable moments in my informal education in science that blew my mind. I had absolutely no idea what prairie was or how diverse, complex and important it was in recounting the history of a state in which I had lived my entire life.

It was ironic, if not a bit sobering, that I had grown upon a farm in a state that once was almost entirely Tall Grass Prairie yet I knew nothing about prairies and virtually nothing about any of the state’s other natural resources. State history wasn’t a focus of my formal or informal educational upbringing. Iowa, I grew up believing, was home to soybeans and corn. And, at that time, a few cattle and hogs. Prairies were something only a few young girls read about in Laura Ingalls Wilder novels.

It turns out Joyce Hornstein didn’t read “Little House on the Prairie” novels as a youngster. Rather, she lived a modern-day version of the story. While we both grew up on farms in rural Iowa, our upbringings, in many ways, couldn’t have been much different.

Growing up on a crop and livestock farm along the wooded North Fork of the Maquoketa River in Dubuque County, Joyce and her sisters heard lots of stories from their parents and grandparents about the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

This was a generation after the arrival in the state of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the integration of various conservation practices that included building contours on hilly ground, such as the land her parents and while taking botany and land management classes that Joyce’s “mind was opened to prairie before trees.”

A deeper connection and devotion to prairies began to take root and blossom during Joyce’s career at ISU that included working in agronomy and entomology — 19 years of which were for the Extension Service.

During that time, she took a master conservationist class in Polk County and was a founding member of the Iowa Prairie Network. Eventually, she served on the Story County Conservation Board from 2005 through 2014, including chair in both 2008 and 2014, and has volunteered countless hours for both Polk and Story counties, mainly with seed harvest and trail work.

“I just love prairies,” she says. “I’ve always loved plants, and with plants the animals come with it. What could be better?”

Thinking back to that first encounter with Joyce at Pohl Preserve and sub- sequent meetings in the weeks and months that followed, it would be hard to argue with her assertion.

After all, it was with Joyce’s patience and guidance that I was first introduced to plants with imaginative names like blue wild indigo, hoary puccoon, pale spiked lobella, Virginia spiderwort, daisy fleebane, butterfly milkweed and porcupine needle grass, a sample barb of which is still pressed in a field guide I carried during those outings and as sharp as the day it was picked.

In a bit of irony or serendipity, the home Joyce and her husband, Scott, live in outside of Huxley is situated on an oak and hickory savannah, similar to the land she grew up on in northeastern Iowa where she learned the ethics about life and conservation that she lives and imparts to others.

“I think what’s important is we really have to be stewards of the land, air, water and one another,” she says. “I wish more people understood that.”

Todd Burras can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com.

Name: Joyce Hornstein

Lives: lived in and near Huxley since 1977

Grew up:  along the North Fork of the Maquoketa River in Dubuque County.

Education:  Iowa State University Bachelor of Science degree in botany; ISU Master of Science degree in agronomy

Family: husband, Scott, and two cats

Worked: retired from ISU; worked in agronomy and entomology, including 19 years for ISU Extension

Volunteers: various conservation groups including Story and Polk County Conservation and the Iowa Prairie Network; Ballard Community Performing Arts Association Board

Hobbies:  hiking, bird watching, playing in local community band, reading

Favorite native plant species:  wow, there are so many — prairie clovers, blue flag iris, cardinal flower, oak trees

Favorite public green spaces in Iowa: Hayden Prairie State Preserve, Effigy Mounds National Monument, White Pine Hollow Wildlife Management Area in Dubuque County, Rochester Cemetery in Cedar County

Olav Smedal Conservation Award

The Olav Smedal Conservation Award is given annually in honor of the late Tribune outdoors editor by the Ames Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America and Story County Conservation. The award goes to an individual or individuals who, by their actions or communications, has or have done the most to accurately present to the public of central Iowa excellence in the conservation of natural resources and outdoor pursuits while representing the highest standards of ethics and sportsmanship.

To nominate someone for the award, contact Mike Meetz at mcmeetz1@gmail.com.

Olav Smedal Award Recipients

1988 – Dale Brentnall
1989 – Bill Horine
1990 – Steve Lekwa
1991 – Nancy Kurrle
1992 – Cele Burnett
1993 – David Van Waus
1994 – Robert Pinneke
1995 – Jim Pease
1996 – George Patrick
1997 – Ed Powell
1998 – Mike Meetz
1999 – Linda & Hank Zaletel
2000 – Ervin Klaas
2001 – Cindy Hildebrand

2002 – Jim Dinsmore
2003 – Todd Burras
2004 – Jim Colbert
2005 – John Pohlman
2006 – Rick Dietz
2007 – Jimmie Thompson
2008 – Linda & Carl Kurtz
2009 – Gaylan & Lloyd Crim
2010 – Deb Lewis
2011 – Tom Rosburg
2012 – Marlene & Bruce Ehresman
2013 – Kerry “Pat” Schlarbaum
2014 – Mike Todd
2015 – Wolf Oesterreich
2016 – Hank Kohler