"The Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas"—the first comprehensive statewide survey of Iowa's breeding birds—provides a detailed record of the composition and distribution of the avifauna of the Hawkeye State. The atlas documents the presence of 199 species, 158 of which were confirmed breeding. This landmark volume will alert Iowans to the limited distribution of numerous species and serve as a guide to the management practices—such as forest and wetland management, set-aside programs, reduction in farm chemical use, and crop diversity—which could help insure that many future changes are positive ones. "The Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas" provides a welcome and much-needed baseline for future comparisons of changes in Iowa's birdlife and, by extension, the lives of all animals in the state.

This Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas II (BBA II) is intended to provide a comprehensive look at the distribution and breeding evidence for Iowa’s breeding birds and document changes since the first atlas effort. These data were gathered during a five-year period and so represent a snapshot in time. This publication summarizes atlas findings through individual species accounts that also include basic information on each species’ status in Iowa along with their habitat, breeding dates, basic nesting information, and population changes as measured by the federal Breeding Bird Survey (Ziolkowski et al. 2010, U.S. Geological Survey 2020). Comparisons are also made to recent atlas efforts in surrounding states in an attempt to provide a regional context to Iowa’s findings.

Results of the Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas II conducted 2008-2012. This book summarizes changes from the first atlas project twenty years ago with maps, tables, and charts showing the differences.

Much has changed with Iowa’s wildlife in the years 1990 to 2020. Some species such as Canada goose, wild turkey, and white-tailed deer that once were rare in Iowa are now common, and others like sandhill crane, river otter, and trumpeter swan are becoming increasingly abundant. Iowa’s Changing Wildlife provides an up-to-date, scientifically based summary of changes in the distribution, status, conservation needs, and future prospects of about sixty species of Iowa’s birds and mammals whose populations have increased or decreased in the past three decades. Readers will learn more about familiar species, become acquainted with the status of less familiar species, and find out how many of the species around them have fared during this era of transformation.

This long-awaited collection of James Landenberger’s paintings of Iowa birds of prey presents thirty-two full-page, full-color species, from the common turkey vulture to the red-shouldered hawk of Mississippi River woodlands to the little northern saw-whet owl. Four naturalists who have devoted their lives to conserving wilderness habitats and species have written essays to complement the paintings. Thanks to state and federal laws and a shift in public attitude, birds of prey are no longer seen as incarnations of ferocity but as creatures superbly attuned to their lives and surroundings. Although Iowa unfortunately leads the way in the amount of wildlife habitat that has been destroyed, conservation organizations and state agencies have also led the way toward successful raptor restoration projects, among them a roadside nest box program for the American kestrel, a project to restore peregrine falcons to their historic eyries, and a relocation program that should ensure a sustainable population of ospreys. The recent spectacular recovery of the bald eagle, whose nests had vanished from the state for seventy years, is particularly encouraging. There can be no substitute for seeing thousands of broad-winged hawks soaring high overhead during migration, a great horned owl perching in silhouette at dusk, or a Cooper’s hawk plunging toward its prey along the roadside. But Jim Landenberger’s meticulously detailed paintings go a long way toward conveying the remarkable beauty of the American kestrel and other falcons, the grace of the swallow-tailed kite, the immaculate mystery of the snowy owl and its fellow owls, the glistening head feathers of an adult bald eagle, and the piercing defiance so characteristic of our larger hawks.

"The Kansas Breeding Bird Atlas represents the efforts of 180 volunteers who diligently sought out birds over a period of six years, observing their behavior and locating active nests and fledged young throughout the state, whether in tallgrass prairies, riparian forests, or wetlands. In addition to these efforts, Busby and Zimmerman gathered a wealth of information relating the volunteers' observations to ecological factors affecting the birds' habitat selection.".