Larry Stone's Iowa

Toms strut their stuff

Spring green

blue-winged teal on Mississippi

Feisty little bucks

Planning a family

Bishop's cap

Bluebird babies

THE RUSH OF SPRING

Waterfowl migrating.

Bluebirds nesting.

Turkeys gobbling

Flowers blooming.

Tree buds bursting.

Late-frost warnings.

First thunderstorms.

Morels popping.

Farmers planting.

Garden needs tilling.

It happens every year:

We’re so busy trying to savor the arrival of spring that we can get swept away by the avalanche of changes that highlight March, April, and May.

When a red-winged blackbird arrived in early March, we figured that was just a hint of the gradual retreat of winter and the subtle onset of spring. But March 2012 made up its own calendar.

Turkey vultures began soaring northward on the warm winds. Balmy evenings set off the “sky dance” of the woodcocks. Spring peepers convened an evening chorus.

When the crocuses bloomed, the song sparrows cheerily announced their return, the comma butterflies darted about, and wooly bear caterpillars scurried across the road – all by mid-March – I began to fear sensory overload.

The morning after the first March thunderstorm, the tom turkeys responded with thunder of their own: gobbling that reverberated through the woods from dawn until late morning. Within a day or two, the first squeaky cowbirds tried to stake out territories. I much preferred the distinct, wild, remote purring of the sandhill cranes that soared over unseen in the dusk.

Woodland wildflowers could not suppress their need to bloom before the tree canopy grows too dense. Spring beauties, hepaticas, bloodroots, bellworts, Jack-in-the-pulpits, anemones, buttercups, wild ginger, bishop’s cap, dogtooth violets – and a host of others – beautified the awakening forest. Of course, some less attractive critters haunted the forest, too. Every hike was followed by a careful search for hitch-hiking deer ticks.

Each day brought a new, yet familiar, reminder of Nature’s cycle. The phoebe busily tidied up its family’s traditional nest site under the eave. The lilacs burst into sweet bloom several weeks early – but managed to survive the inevitable frost. Three pairs of bluebirds reached a truce, so each couple could claim their own box and begin laying.

“Drink your tea!” proclaimed the towhee. The brown thrasher jabbered tirelessly from its hidden perch in the pale-green first leaves on a boxelder.

Moths flittered at the window at dusk. June (?) bugs started buzzing in late April, mocking their own name. Buck deer, with antlers still just stubs of velvet, already have begun sparring for rights to next fall’s harems.

And the celebration continues! Baby bluebirds are nearly ready to fledge. Hummingbirds have returned – trusting that the sugar-water feeder would be waiting for them. The oriole quickly found its dish of grape jelly, too.

The rose-breasted grosbeaks immediately homed in on the sunflower seeds. But they have to share with the red-bellied woodpeckers, which stop regularly to fill their beaks and then fly away – probably to a nest of hungry youngsters.

A lone yellow-rump foretells the warbler migration, golden Alexander signals the awakening of the prairie, the first fawns should venture out soon.

It will be a never-ending show, from now until the snow flies once again.

Despite it's broken bill, this male red-bellied woodpecker has managed to eat enough pieces of sunflower hearts to stay plump and healthy.

Although this male red-bellied woodpecker somehow lost most of the top half of his beak, the resourceful bird has managed to stay otherwise healthy. Perhaps it’s because he’s learned to gorge himself on chunks of sunflower hearts from our bird feeder.

By tipping his head and shooting out that l-o-n-g tongue, the bird scoops seed after seed into what’s left of his bill, where they instantly disappear.

It will be interesting to see how long the red-bellied can survive, and whether his defective bill affects his ability to find a mate as the breeding season approaches.

We wonder whether his handicap may curtail his pounding on our cedar siding!

Papa bluebird says "thanks" for cleaning out the nest box

Maybe that wasn’t the bluebirds’ intent, when they sat on the branch, sunning themselves on a balmy March afternoon. But I took it upon myself to anthropomorphize.

I’d just finished the spring clean-out of our bluebird boxes, prompted by occasional bluebird whistles I’d been hearing from the edge of the woods.

Within minutes, the male was perched atop one house, chortling softly to his mate. Then they both flitted closer to my window, and posed for several minutes with what I perceived to be an avian “thank-you.”

Sure, it’s still early in the season, and I hope the bluebirds won’t start nesting TOO soon. (We could have another blizzard or two before spring really arrives.)

But the longer days and the abnormally warm temperatures – and of course the freshly-cleaned bird houses – may have lit the spark.

What better way to welcome the new season than to watch the bluebirds prepare to start their family!

Tufted Titmouse

Snowy delight?

“Peter, Peter, Peter!” declare the tufted titmice.

“Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!” chimes in the cardinal.

The bluebirds chortle quietly in agreement.

Turkeys explore the hayfield hilltop – perhaps staking out territories for soon-to-come strutting and gobbling and showing off for the hens.

Further south, there are reports of killdeer, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, mergansers, white-fronted geese, and even a turkey vulture.

Spring can’t be TOO far away . . .

Yet the TV weather forecaster has another idea.

“Winter storm warning . . . 4 to 8 inches . . . Travel hazards expected . . . Blowing and drifting . . .”

OK . . . but at least it’s a PRETTY storm . . .

As the flakes fall faster in the fading daylight, three yearling whitetails prance and jump and race in and out of the trees in the sheltered valley, like playful children burning off energy after a day at school. Is this their prelude to “spring break?”

The world turns white, gray, and then black, as dusk yields to night. In the light from the window, the huge, wet flakes drift down like cottonballs suspended in the darkness. The sticky snow-globs – they’re much more than flakes – flock the branches of a leafless hackberry, creating an improbable Christmas-card scene.

When you step out on the deck to watch the storm, you hear the coyotes yipping and yowling in the distance. Are they, too, celebrating the delights of winter?

Delights?

Schools delay morning classes.

Snowplow drivers rack up more overtime.

The Decorah eagle cam shows the world-famous birds hunkered down in their nest to protect newly-lain eggs from the storm.

A northern harrier – forced by the snow cover to abandon his grassland hunting fields – swoops instead over the bird feeder, hoping in vain for an unwary junco.

Temperatures dip into the teens, icy roads, snow still clinging to the trees: winter won’t quite let go.

Yet a male goldfinch sports a bright-yellow patch on his shoulder, dawn comes early, and the twilight lingers past suppertime. Then, abruptly, winds shift to the south, temperatures rebound into the 40s, and the snow turns to mud and slush.

And now we celebrate the delights of spring – which really IS on its way . . .

Hungry turkeys find lunch in a corn field

Winter at last!

As much as I may have enjoyed the lower heating bills or not having to shovel or avoiding the hassle of slick roads, it just didn’t seem like winter – at least until the recent sub-zero cold and 6-inch snow. Finally, I was able to put on the snow pants, clamp on the skis, and get out to savor January in northeast Iowa.

A chill wind stung my cheeks, but sliding the skis through the fresh powder quickly got my blood flowing enough to warm my extremities. Swishing along the garden path, I could follow the deer’s meandering tracks as the whitetail pressed against the protective fence in a vain attempt to browse on the crab apple tree, then had to settle for an apple core snack in the compost pile.

Farther on, the line of hoof prints changed to splashes in the snow more than 10 feet apart, as the animal suddenly bounded away in fright. What had spooked the usually calm deer? An approaching car? A slamming door?

At the edge of the woods, the bright red of a cardinal accented the otherwise gray expanse of leafless trees. A downy woodpecker tapped hopefully on the bark of a dead elm. I wished him success in dislodging a grub to eat for lunch. A white-breasted nuthatch joined the search for food, noisily “yank-yanking” his way up, down, and around the crevasses of an oak limb.

When I stopped to watch and listen, I could hear the ominous whooshing of the east wind in the treetops, perhaps foretelling the onset of yet another round of snow. But the rising breeze could not drown out the crow chorus echoing across the creek valley below. What mischief were those hardy birds up to?

Turning my back to the breeze, I glided down the trail by the prairie, relishing the beauty of the brown heads of bush clover, the golden stems of Indiangrass and bluestem, and the contorted compass plant leaves.

Time to return to the house, toss another log on the fire, and sip a cup of hot chocolate. And, yes, I may grumble when I again have to start the tractor to blade the driveway, or haul more firewood up from the barn, or wonder whether that urgent meeting will be cancelled because of icy roads. Still, I must admit that I sometimes kinda LIKE winter!

Home-grown tomatoes!

We need to ask more questions about our food.

Where is it produced?

Who is raising it?

How much energy is used to grow it?

What chemicals are applied to it?

Is the land used sustainably, so it can continue to produce the crops?

That was a take-away message from the recent annual conference of the Practical Farmers of Iowa.

The simple act of thinking more about the issues surrounding what we eat – the food that gives us the sustenance for life itself – could help us solve a variety of environmental, social, and economic problems.

Eating locally grown food is a first step. By some estimates, food items in a typical meal travel an average of 1,500 miles to reach our tables. What if we ate meat and produce from growers in our own communities? We’d save transportation costs, and perhaps feel connected to the local vegetable grower or the beef, pork, or poultry producer who was feeding us.

We’d also be helping to slow climate change. It’s estimated that one-third of the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming are produced by the food system. Transporting the food isn’t the only culprit behind that heavy carbon footprint. Many of those gases come from the fossil fuels that power the machines and produce the fertilizers used in industrial agriculture. How about raising livestock on the land – instead of in buildings that require constant energy use for ventilation and sanitation? What if cattle ate grass, instead of corn that requires huge inputs of fossil fuels?

What about the chemicals in our foods? Since 1998, Danish pork producers have been banned from feeding their pigs sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics. The prohibition was aimed at the growing problem of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. Drugs still may be used to treat sick animals in Denmark, but only with a veterinarian’s prescription and with careful record keeping. In the U. S., however, most swine producers continue to add antibiotics to the feed. A proposed U. S. ban was dropped last year.

Maybe the sheer size of today’s farming operations contributes to our food frustrations. As farms get bigger, people leave rural communities. We feel less connected to our neighbors, schools, and towns. And farmers may lose touch with their land.

Perhaps we will be forced to repopulate rural Iowa, if fossil fuel supplies run low and prices soar too high, noted Frederick Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. If we can no longer depend on cheap energy to replace human labor, the industrial agriculture of today will not be sustainable. More farmers will again be needed to work the land, and to restore the biological health of the soil. We will depend on that healthy soil – rather than fossil fuels – to supply ecosystem services such as fertilizer and pest management.

“It’s not a matter of going back” to horse farming of our grandfathers, Kirschenmann said. “We need to take the wisdom from the past and marry it to science.”

Rough-legged Hawk

Northern Shrike

If you’re eager for winter, it’s always refreshing to see the season’s first Rough-legged Hawk. Seldom very common in Iowa, occasional rough-legs may drift into the state in October, and remain as late as March.

These striking, black-and-white raptors, which nest on the Arctic tundra, seem to adjust readily to winter hunting in Iowa grasslands. Rough-legs often hover over CRP fields or roadsides, ready to pounce on any unwary mouse or vole.

Given their summer homes on the tundra, where tree perches are virtually nonexistent, rough-legs in Iowa may welcome the vistas they get from a farm-country fence post or utility pole.

It’s even more of a treat for Iowa birders to see a Northern Shrike, which also may be an uncommon visitor from northern Canada. Only about the size of a robin, the small but fierce shrike has a hooked, raptor-like bill well-suited to feasting on mice; hence the nickname, “butcher bird.” And if a shrike has especially good hunting, it may impale excess prey on thorns or even barbed wire.

Shrikes also are opportunists, as the Black-capped Chickadees around our feeder discovered recently. A shrike perched in the top of the small tree above our feeder, then swooped at chickadees that came to lunch. The startled little black-caps easily out-maneuvered the shrike and escaped unscathed, however. But the chickadees aren’t always so lucky. More than once, a marauding Sharp-shinned Hawk has snatched a chickadee meal from around our feeders.

Nature’s daily dramas can be entertaining to us humans – but they’re also graphic illustrations of the cycles of life and death.

Watchin' the woods . . .

Watchin' back . . .

DEER HUNTIN’ WITH PAPA

“Where are the deer, Papa? Maybe we should go another place if there aren’t any deer here.”

When you’re 7, and have been sitting in a deer blind for at least half an hour, patience may not be one of your strongest traits.

“How about if I walk over the hill to where my Dad is? Maybe the deer are there.

“Can we have a snack?
I brought some granola bars.”

Food may help pass the time, of course.  And there’s seldom a shortage of amazing things to see.

“Squirrel!  Look, he’s coming down that tree. See it, Papa?

“I thought I saw a bald eagle . . . And there’s a blue jay! There it goes.

“I heard another bird. Was it a woodpecker?

“Can I look through the binoculars?  The trees look wiggly.  Maybe the deer are coming!  Or is it just the wind?

“I don’t think the deer will come.  Can we go back to the house now?”

Maybe we’ve reached the limit of the attention . . .

“DEER!  Papa, look! Down in the trees? Can you shoot it?

“There’s more. They’re running up the hill in the grass.  There’s a BUNCH!  Are they close enough?  Are you going to shoot at them?

“Here come some more.  See them across the ditch?

“Tell me when you’re going to shoot and I’ll put my fingers in my ears.”

BANG!

“You got it, Papa! You got it!

“Hey! Here come some more. Look!”

BANG!

“Did you get it, Papa?  Where’d it go?”

Good question! Where DID that deer go? Time to take a closer look . . .

“Here’s some blood, Papa!  I’ll follow the blood . . .

“Papa, I found the deer! Here’s the deer! You got it, Papa.

“It’s still warm.  It’s ears are so soft. And it’s hair is so smooth.”

Together, we admire the whitetail.  But shooting the animal is one thing.  Now for the next step. Field dressing might not be so pretty . . . Still, the questions continue:

“Is that its stomach?  It’s nose is shiny.  Why are its eyes still open?  It has a lot of guts!  Will the coyotes eat them?”

Finally, the excitement begins to wane, temporarily, with the more mundane task of loading the big doe into the truck for the short trip back to the house – where it’s time to tell the story all over again!

“I saw the deer for Papa, and I followed the blood trail.  We got two deer!”

Then, after an early supper of – what else?! – chili made from last year’s venison, it’s almost time for bed.  But what’s that noise?

“Coyotes!  Are they eating our deer guts?”

“Can we go hunting tomorrow, Papa?”

Gray-brown November . . .

The season is changin' . . .

Fueling up!

We started this month with a balmy stroll in the woods, where lingering bronze oak leaves glowed in the warm sun.

A day or two later, bluebirds serenaded us as we worked up a sweat while cleaning the dead tomato vines off the garden.

At night, a few katydids continued to sing, albeit v-e-r-y slowly.

Frosty nights gilded fallen leaves and left a skim of ice on the birdbath – yet some afternoons turned shirtsleeve warm.

We savored the subtle browns, tans, grays, and golds of the leafless walnut trees, prairie grasses, and dried flower heads. A couple of yellow goldenrods and purple asters hid in the now-dormant warm season grasses. The sunny afternoon even presented an ideal time to mow the ski trails . . .

A flock of snow geese drifted southward above the valley, their plaintive calls perhaps predicting a more dramatic seasonal transition.

The cool drizzle that greeted us the next morning also foretold the change. A flock of wild turkeys left the dripping woods to brave the gentle rain in a hayfield on an open hilltop. Sluggish earthworms wriggled across the damp driveway.

Four bald eagles – oblivious to the weather – screeched and cackled as they soared and sparred over the river bluff. And the moisture only enhanced the beauty of the autumn woods and prairies.

But as dawn broke the following day, we realized that, yes, this is still Iowa in November. Wet snow, whipped by whistling winds, bent the bluestem and Indiangrass, frosted the tree branches, and obscured the horizon. The radio told urgently of power outages, school closings, and hazardous roads.

Goldfinches, titmice, chickadees, cardinals, nuthatches, and downy woodpeckers crowded onto the feeder for sunflower seed snacks.

Still, the calendar claims there’s another month of Autumn – as fickle and variable as it may be. We look forward to more sunshine, as well as the gray days. We anticipate siskins, rough-legs, and other visitors from the north, as we bid farewell to the slow-to-leave robins.

As winter approaches, we’re glad to have a barn full of dry firewood and shelves of homemade soup in the pantry. Let it snow – but not too much or too soon!

Our back yard

White red-tail

Soybean harvest

Wolf spider

Fishin' the Turkey

Ring-billed gulls

Chicken Ridge

Bald-faced hornet

Flowering crab

Trumpeter swans

Katydid

Motor Mill & harvest moon

September sunset

Fog drifts above the valleys at dawn.

The gray wisps sparkle in the first rays of sun, and frame the golden glow of the distant cottonwoods, maples, and oaks.

Dew gilds the purple asters and bronze Indiangrass in the prairie.

Goldfinches at the feeder chatter as they have all summer – but the males have shed their canary-yellow breeding plumage, leaving them almost indistinguishable from the olive-green females.

A flock of cedar waxwings swoops down on the flowering crab, perhaps attracted by the tiny, bright-red fruits. But the birds don’t stay long. The miniature apples will be much more palatable after a hard freeze has softened them.

A few turkey vultures still soar on the thermals as the day warms – although many of the buzzards’ kin may already have begun drifting southward.

An osprey wheels over the river, as they regularly seem to do only in the fall, and only for a brief visit.

Warm afternoons bring a flurry of insects, many of which may be enjoying a last hurrah before their short lives end with the approaching cold.

A monarch flutters in search of goldenrod blossoms.

Grasshoppers cling to the withering green beans in the garden.

Ants, bees, and bald-faced hornets feast on the sweet juices of the pear and apple cores atop the compost pile.

An occasional katydid tries to strike up a tune, although its efforts may be muted by the cool of the evening, when the sinking sun loses its power.

And then come the long, lingering, lovely sunsets.

Purples and oranges and pinks and reds paint the clouds and even the jet contrails.

Just as you think it can’t get any better, the moon creeps above the horizon to prolong the tranquil end to a radiant autumn day.