This is perhaps my favorite time of year! Flowers are blooming. Trees are getting their leaves back. The weather is getting nicer. Animals are emerging. And one of my favorite things…the birds are back! I absolutely love waking up in the morning to the birds chirping.

Millions of birds are making the lengthy journey from their wintering areas to their summer nesting grounds. Some may choose to stop here and make Iowa their summer home. Others though, may be traveling as far as northern Canada and the subarctic! Sometimes they may even be flying from as far away as South America!

This is an exciting time of year for anyone who is interested in our avian friends. The Cornell Lab BirdCast estimated nearly 1.5 million birds flew over Iowa in a single night, and nearly 207 million flew over the United States on the same night, April 29-30!

Iowa is located along the Mississippi River flyway, a migration highway for birds that extends from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Iowa’s variety of habitats, including forests, wetlands, prairies, and agricultural land provide an array of resources for the migrating birds to rest and refuel. Saylorville Reservoir, Rathbun Lake, and Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge are all major stopovers along the route. You may have noticed American White Pelicans along the waterways or songbirds like Baltimore Orioles near homes and parks recently. These are just two of the hundreds of species that either migrate through or call Iowa home every year.

(Baltimore Oriole, Cornell Lab)

Migration is not only exciting, but also important. Birds play an essential role in pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control. Without birds, our ecosystems would not be the same. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is Iowa’s only bird pollinator, and you might even be able to catch a glimpse flitting around your feeders and flower gardens. The Northern Cardinal, perhaps one of Iowa’s most recognizable birds, is just one of many avian species that eat fruit and seeds and help disperse those seeds by passing them through their digestive system intact. Other birds, like the Black-capped Chickadee, may cache seeds for later. Some birds, like Northern House Wrens, eat insects, which can help control pest populations.

(Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Cornell Lab)

Despite the beauty and importance of our avian friends, bird populations across North America are declining rapidly, with reports of up to 3 billion birds lost since 1970. Some contributing factors include habitat loss, outdoor cats, collisions with windows, and pesticides. Many of these same factors are also contributing to the decline of other species, like pollinators.

There is hope though! You can help birds in several ways. One way is by enhancing bird habitat through acts like establishing a Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), creating a habitat for pollinators, or
planting or keeping trees. Planting native plants and trees will not only help our pollinator friends like butterflies, bees, and other insects, but will also help provide food and shelter for birds that rely on those
resources. If you have ever experienced a bird hitting your window, they might be seeing the reflections of vegetation or the sky, or they might be seeing house plants through the glass. Installing mosquito screens on the outside of the window or putting decals, stickers, sun catchers, or even sticky notes on your window can help reduce bird collisions.

There are many resources available for those of us that are interested in birds, and if you’re anything like me, they might be some of your favorite apps or resources, especially this time of year.

Check out a few of them below!

• Cornell Lab All About Birds
• Cornell Lab BirdCast
• Cornell Lab Merlin
• Audobon
• Audubon Bird Migration Explorer
• Iowa Ornithologists’ Union
• Iowa Wildlife Federation
• Bird Friendly Iowa
• iNaturalist

March is not only Iowa History Month, but also Women’s History Month!

While women have not always had recognition for their efforts, they have been involved.

Ada Hayden, 1884 – 1950

One of the most well-known women in Iowa Conservation, Ada Hayden, was born in 1884 and grew up on a farm as an only child. Her home was in Franklin Township in Story County. She attended Iowa State College, which was later renamed Iowa State University. In 1908, she received a bachelor’s degree in botany. After receiving her master’s in botany from Washington University in 1910, she moved back home and worked toward getting her Ph.D from Iowa State College. In 1918, she was the 1st woman and 4th person overall to recieve a doctorate from ISU.

This was only the beginning of her passion for prairie. After her Ph.D, she worked as an assistant botany professor at ISU. In 1934, she became the curator of the herbarium on campus. She concentrated on prairie plants and is said to have created “possibly the best published native flora survey… of any part of Iowa”. She added over 14,000 specimens to the herbarium, many of which were from her family land.

In the 1940’s she began focusing more on prairie preservation. This however, is far from the first time that she thought about saving prairie. In 1919, she wrote an article about the importance of setting aside prairie for permanent preservation and research. She believed that prairie preserves serve as a living museum and field lab for scientists. In 1944 she helped write a report identifying areas of perservable prairie in Iowa. 

In 1950, at the age of 65, she died of cancer. Today, there is a beautiful prairie and park in Ames, IA, named after her. 

Herma Albertson Baggley, 1896 – 1981

Kathryn “Kitty” Hach-Darrow, 1922 – 2020

While not Iowa-born, Kitty did a lot of good work in Iowa. While attending Iowa State University, she met her husband, Clifford C. Hach, and they married in 1943. While working in a water treatment plant, Clifford had the idea for a simplified method of analysis that would allow workers to treat water with powdered formulas rather than the heavy chemical solutions they were using. In 1947, they co-founded the Hach Chemical Company based on this idea. They bought an acre of land in Ames, IA, to build their plant on. They also lived in an apartment on the plant with their 3 children.

As municipal standards for drinking water evolved, Kitty recognized the importance of water plant operators as a market and the need to work closely with them to provide long-term customer service. This drive for excellent service led to her creating a direct mail marketing campaign where she flew a plane with product directly to municipalities of all sizes. While operating this campaign, she flew over 7,000 hrs and became a part of the Ninety-Nines, an international group of women pilots.

In 1957, the Hachs won the American Water Works George Warren Fuller Award for distinguished service in the water supply field. In 1978, they moved their headquarters to Loveland, CO.

Kitty was known as an accomplished pilot and one of the top women business owners. She was also the first woman director of an international non-profit focused on better water quality, the American Water Works Association. Afterward she served on many AWWA committees, including the President’s Advisory Council.

These are only a handful of intelligent, caring, and passionate women who have helped shape today’s conservation. Without them and many others, we may not be where we are today. So thank you to the women of the past, who have paved the way for others. Without your struggle, roughly half of the population would not have the choice to be naturalists or conservationists.