One of the traits that makes birds spectacular, is color. They come in every shade — green jay, blue jay, brown jay, scarlet tanager, yellow warbler, purple finch. They come coal black as crows and ravens, and every now and then, they show up with the colors drained.

A painstaking effort by state conservation biologists to pollinate Wisconsin’s rarest wild orchids by hand has paid off: all flowers pollinated by hand produced more seed than flowers left to be pollinated by insects.

When I was in fourth grade, I was assigned a project and presentation on the state of Indiana, where I spent most of my growing-up years. Since I was a budding nature geek, I decided on natural history as a topic and made a big poster board display with various species and ecosystems found a…

“It’s a long way from Park Falls to Rice Lake.”

DODGEVILLE — One of Wisconsin’s largest parks, Governor Dodge State Park, attracts over 500,000 people to southwest Wisconsin each year to enjoy recreation from hiking and biking to swimming and fishing.

SPOONER — Although the morning weather forecast called for brisk and sunny weather, young ice fishermen on the Yellow River flowing through Spooner had to settle for brisk. The sun was hidden behind clouds, but nobody seemed to mind.

Smoke from the cabin chimney hangs over the valley, the sweet smell of woodsmoke filling the air as dawn’s first light begins to chase the darkness of the chilly late-December night.

RICE LAKE — Dawn had painted the horizon all around in hues of yellow, orange and mauve. The trapper takes note. But on this single-digit temperature morning on the back roads, he’s looking for white.

MADISON (AP) — The Wisconsin Department of Resources will start the new year with a new chief warden.

TOWN OF AVON — Hunters were waiting Dec. 20 as Kyle Andreska prepared to release dozens of ring-necked pheasants in Avon Bottoms.

CODY, Wyo. — For the past three years our hunting trip to Wyoming had fallen victim to hot, dry temperatures that kept the mule deer hidden high up the back country mountains near Cody in the dark timber. Our chances for downing a nice heavy-antlered buck were very slim.

BARRONETT — A whitetail deer found dead in Washburn County in the town of Barronett during the recent Wisconsin gun deer season was killed by a mountain lion.

The Department of Natural Resources staff will be stocking 2,260 pheasants on eight properties in southern Wisconsin during the week of Dec. 16, giving upland hunters more opportunities to pursue game birds with friends and family during the holiday season.

A woman is facing possible charges or citations after she shot and killed two bull elk in Rusk County on Nov. 25, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

The calendar and the weather combined to spare tens of thousands of deer during Wisconsin’s recently concluded nine-day gun deer hunting season.

From early childhood through my mid-teens there was only one dog in my life, Scamp, my black lab. No dog after ever tugged at my heart … until Gus came along.

Don’t tell Florence Teeters she’s too old to enjoy Wisconsin’s great outdoors as a gun-deer hunter, along with ziplining, going to Mardi Gras in Louisiana every year and tending to a garden in her bare feet.

The owners of a Durand meat locker are taking a stand against what they view as misleading hype about chronic wasting disease — even if it goes against the advice hunters get from state agencies.

The 2018 case of the sawed-off burls started at a three-way intersection of a tip from the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association to the state conservation wardens, a state forester’s conversation with a victimized woodland owner and a trespass complaint to the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department.

Following more than 24 years of elk management and reintroduction efforts, five lucky hunters experienced success in the field during Wisconsin's second managed elk hunt.

It’s safe to say Matiah Christensen will never forget her first successful buck hunt.

Damage to multiple hunting tree stands in western Wisconsin is going beyond simple vandalism, said Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald.

There’s no shortage of tradition or targets as deer hunters in northwest Wisconsin look forward to the gun deer opener next Saturday.

DURAND — Conservationists are urgently petitioning legislators to reconsider approving a $1.1 million state stewardship grant requested by Landmark Conservancy to purchase 1,024 acres from Xcel Energy to expand the Tiffany Wildlife Area along the Chippewa River in western Wisconsin.

Lightning flashes illuminate the shadows where my dog and I stand huddled beneath a patch of backyard pines.

Preliminary data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shows hunters harvested 3,648 bears during the 2019 Wisconsin black bear season, nearly equal to the 3,680 reported in 2018.

ROCK FALLS — Members of the Chippewa Valley CWD Advisory Team moved quickly through their July 16 orders of business, making, seconding and passing unanimously a motion culminating their year and a half of effort after an Eau Claire County deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease.

When it comes to birds, Audubon is the name to trust.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has received results from the first year testing from the ruffed grouse West Nile virus surveillance project.

PLUM CITY — “When I first saw what they did, I was on board … It was the beauty of it,” said Jeff Van Holtum as he looked over a section of his farm where Plum Creek meandered through his property.

Sitting in a local coffee shop, the jovial Rev. Don Wisner has just come from putting away his beloved oar-powered western-style drift boat, dubbed “Row vs. Wade,” for the season. It’s a ritual that leaves this highly-respected theologian and widely-admired fly fisher with a feeling of grati…

October is like an old friend who returns each autumn.

Fire is a potent and powerful force of nature.

State wildlife officials have confirmed that tissue samples collected from three deer in Crawford County and two deer from Richland County have tested positive for the virus that causes epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD. Department of Natural Resources staff confirmed the occurrence of t…

Every year about this time of late summer, the usual predictions for the upcoming hunting seasons of various game species come out — projections for upland birds, ducks, deer and bear.

Three outdoor organizations are joining together in order to celebrate the unique public lands in Northwest Wisconsin on the 26th annual National Public Lands Day on Sept. 28 near Solon Springs.

BRAINERD, Minn. — On a recent 50-ish degrees early fall day, the calm, mostly deserted waters of Gull Lake would add to a treasure chest of memories for a foursome boat of anglers hopelessly caught up in sportfishing’s circle.

Some hunters in West Central Wisconsin will be required to have their deer tested for chronic wasting disease during the entire nine-day gun deer season Nov. 23 to Dec. 1.

The moods of Mother Nature are easily changed by the seasons. Now, at the end of summer, she spreads her warmth across the landscape and provides almost unlimited food to sustain the wildlife of the region.

After the final and most successful winter trapping effort, 60 more elk joined Wisconsin’s growing herd. The elk are now settling into their new home in northern Wisconsin after their release from the acclimation and quarantine pen.

Taylor Storch goes about his duties as co-owner of Northern Lure Resort and Campground at Gordon Lake near Glidden with great optimism for the operation he and his wife Tiffany have run for the past five years.

SAWBILL LAKE, Minn. — Anyone who travels in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness becomes obsessed with portages.

When the Barron County Board’s Property Committee passed an order earlier this summer requiring boaters to use decontamination stations at landings, it was another way of raising awareness of how boaters can help keep invasive species out of lakes.

GRANTSBURG — Most people have that special place where they like to go to escape for a while. It is the place where you can reload, charge your batteries and just disappear for a few hours. For me that spot is often the Crex Meadows Wildlife Area near Grantsburg, a sprawling wetland prairie …

STOUGHTON — “There are times for quiet reflection and times for interacting in groups. Those who are most successful with managing their PD do both.”

ROCK FALLS — Hunters in parts of Eau Claire, Dunn and Pepin counties will be required to have deer killed during the nine-day gun-deer season in November tested for chronic wasting disease if the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources implements the recommendations the Chippewa Valley CWD…