The recent increase in the number of barn owls across southern Iowa spurred a network of barn owl boxes to crop up on many areas, including Ringgold, as part of a coordinated effort to provide nesting to this state-threatened species. Barn owls have a long nesting season stretching from spring into the fall.

The Ringgold Wildlife Area, south of Mount Ayr on the Missouri border, is 2,600 acres of prairie, timber, oak savannas and floodplains with a handful of fishable ponds mixed in. 

The Ringgold Wildlife Area is home to a host of bird species, including an occasional prairie chicken wandering over from the nearby Kellerton. Five turkeys were lazily bugging in a field. A sharp-shinned hawk flies low and tight to a row of shrubs looking for a meal. Goldfinches seem to be everywhere.

The area features reconstructed prairie as well as some prairie that’s never been plowed. It's forb heavy which benefits pollinators and birds who dine on the bugs attracted to the flowers.