The nearly 440-acre rectangular shaped Van Buren Wildlife Area, in northwest Van Buren County, is a popular place for bird watchers, mushroom hunters, shed antler hunters, deer, turkey and squirrel hunters, and by hikers who enjoy an open timber setting.
The open timber is the result of extensive management. With the completion of a 34-acre controlled burn on the east side this spring, nearly the entire area has undergone timber stand improvement.
“Everything needs management,” said Keith Wilcox, wildlife biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Sugema Unit. “We’ve used different practices here to get different results – clear cut to remove trees impacted by oak wilt, girdling to provide dead trees that are important habitat for bats, woodpeckers, cavity nesters and the like. We’ve done some understory work, removed certain trees to favor oaks, and used prescribed fire to manage the vegetation.
“Each of these practices have different purposes, but together, the results make Van Buren a unique area. One goal here is to encourage oak and hickory natural regeneration.”
Van Buren Wildlife Area is 11 miles south of Fairfield, just south of Iowa Hwy. 16. Its roughly 1-1/2 miles long and a half mile wide, with rolling hills and nearly all timbered.
“It’s a special place for bird watching or to enjoy fall colors. It has a great population of deer, squirrels and turkeys. It’s really a showcase for timber management,” Wilcox said.
The Iowa DNR’s Multi Species Inventory and Monitoring Program has inventoried the different wildlife species that calls Van Buren home, and it’s an area where listening devices have been deployed as part of the DNR’s bat survey.
An old logging access is used by hikers and by hunters. It’s a really busy place during bow season, and in the spring during turkey season and by mushroom hunters. It’s also high on the list of ‘places to go’ when the bird migration is underway.
“In the spring, the number of bird species here is amazing,” he said.
Van Buren is part of the Lake Sugema-Lacey-Keosauqua Bird Conservation Area making it an important stopover for a variety of neotropical migratory birds during spring and fall migration. It’s part of a popular birding watching loop in Southeast Iowa.
“It’s a great place to go for a beautiful walk in the fall,” Wilcox said.