Ray Harden
During our January 2016 birding adventures in Florida, we wanted to see a red-cockaded woodpecker. It is an endangered species found only in the extreme southeast corner of the United States, mostly in northern Florida.
Ornithologists estimate there are only...
In the cool pre-morning darkness, Margaret and I were in a group of 10 birders and two guides hiking down a steep, narrow trail in the foothills of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. We were very careful. The loose...
My wife Margaret and I were birding at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on the east coast of Florida in January 2016. We were looking specifically for the endangered Florida scrub jay, a species similar to Iowa's blue jay.
The...
I met with three other birders, Sue Schulteis, Ben Case and his 10-year-old son Emery, before sunrise at Voas Wildlife Area near Minburn Saturday, Dec. 19. Along with 23 other birders spread across the county, we were taking part...
Iowa's senators Grassley and Ernst and Governor Branstad are now engaged in a fight to oppose the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling on the Waters of the United States. Grassley and Ernst said in a recent Des Moines...
There were hundreds of starlings sitting on the electrical wires high above the road at the Voas Nature Area near Minburn this week, and I have seen huge flocks of them forming in several places across the state this...
Last week the Iowa Soybean Association released its Water Quality Data Report for 2015. The association monitored water at 45 testing sites along the Raccoon River and its tributaries, taking readings every two weeks during the growing season.
The report...
It could not have been a more perfect day for a float down the Raccoon River. The water was amazingly clear, the sun was bright, and there was not a cloud in the sky. The cool fall temperature felt...
Friends of the Perry Public Library began setting up Thursday for the fall book sale that runs Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Volunteer Friends got some help in their preparations from the...
Perry native Scott Heldt, a candidate for the Iowa General Assembly, visited with voters Thursday morning at the Perry Perk coffeehouse in downtown Perry.
Heldt is running for a seat in the Iowa House of Representatives for District 20, which...
