Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Just before her Conservation Big Year, Laura just received a splendid gift.

In this program, originally aired in 2012, Laura talks about how fearsome the world has always been, and how her favorite bird, the chickadee, faces up to ever-present danger.

Are chickadees really friendly, or when they approach us, is it entirely on their own terms?

Many people think birders who keep life lists are reducing beautiful natural creatures into numbers. For Laura, her life list conjures memories of joyful experiences.

Laura talks about the value of keeping a field notebook.

Laura checked out the three top bird identification apps based on field guides.

People in Minnesota who have been contributing to the non-game wildlife program feel betrayed now that the DNR has reclassified the Mourning Dove and Sandhill Crane as game species.

Laura saw Pine Grosbeaks on Thanksgiving, calling to mind some early experiences with them.

When Laura was in California, she spent some quality time with Black Phoebes.

Brants do not belong in Minnesota. Yet one turned up in Duluth today.

When Laura stayed on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, she got to enjoy one of the funkiest of all ducks.

Laura finds some intriguing comparisons between an abnormally pale chickadee and Moby Dick.

Laura talks about a fond memory of an evening in the Natural Resources Building on the Michigan State University campus, and about her husband’s less fond memory of the same place on a different night

An airplane’s mid-air collision with a fish and more true but fishy tales.

Laura talks about one of her favorite fall birds, and why the Brown Creeper has such a large place in her heart.

Laura enthusiastically recommends this one.

Laura doesn’t like a lot of books that are general overviews, but thinks the Bird Watcher’s Bible belongs on every birder’s shelf.

Laura gives an enthusiastic thumbs up to Lang Elliott and Marie Read’s eBook, Music of the Birds.

No matter where we stand on the political spectrum, we need to clean up the environment.

Laura spent a memorable few hours birding at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Orange County, California.

How can we reduce the number of birds killed at our windows?

During migration, the birds in our backyards change from day to day. If we leave for a few days, we return to an entirely different avian community.

Laura got to spend a day with Dave Govatski, who has hiked very single mile in the White Mountain trail guide.

Laura spent a couple of days along the New Hampshire coast.

Birds flooded through Duluth on September 22.

Laura tracked down her favorite teacher in Florida

Laura’s fifth grade teacher was her most treasured teacher in her whole life.

Reminders about the last Ruby-throated Hummingbird and the possibility for rarities in fall.

A new paper is giving scientists some insights into the functions of grieving and funerals. The transcript of this program was quoted in Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds.

The end of the saga of Ludwig the Blue Jay

Interesting and funny stories about a little Blue Jay

What happened to the little Blue Jay Laura rescued from a dog?

Why does Laura love Blue Jays so very much?

How birds enrich human lives

Fall migration is already starting, and Laura stood out on Peabody Street watching a small flight of nighthawks.

Laura reads the opening of the Endangered Species Act, explaining the importance of this fundamentally important law, its early successes, and the trouble with adding new species today.

Laura talks about how Evening Grosbeaks enriched her life.

Laura talks about energy exploration at one of the most important national treasures—the one essential for the survival of Whooping Cranes.

Laura talks about another crested “blue jay,” that lives only in the West.

Laura Erickson designates any month with a Blue Moon as National Blue Jay Awareness Month.

Ulysses S. Grant was not into hunting.

Hot weather can take a toll on birds. How can we help?

Laura responds to a Duluth News-Tribune commentary that claimed hawks are destroying our songbird populations

Laura remembers Andy Griffith, and the values The Andy Griffith Show exemplified.

Why can’t you play a bird song into your iPhone or iPad and use an app to tell you what it is? Laura explains and tells about some of the best ways to learn bird songs.

Laura talks about the newest apps for showing where real birds right this moment, thanks to eBird. (Note: Bird Log has been replaced by the free eBird app.)

Laura compares some important birding apps, including the Sibley field guide App, iBird Explorer Pro, the Peterson guide app, and the Audubon bird app.

An unprecedented flood caused serious damage in Duluth, but the birds (except at the zoo) fared well.

Laura wonders if the small number of Mourning Doves in northern Minnesota justify the dove hunt season on them, and also whether they should be hunted with lead shot.

Ryan Brady and Dick Verch did a northern Wisconsin Big Day. What did they see?

Today Laura talks about several bird songs and calls that are distinctive.

In this two-part series, Laura explains how to recognize some of our most common singers in the north woods.Today she covers birds with long melodies.

Why do woodpeckers tap on metal? They actually have a good reason.

Laura looks into the private lives of Field Sparrows.

How can a bird as lovely as a Prothonotary Warbler show up in the parking lot of a Jewel-Osco store in Chicago?

Laura’s headed to Ohio for the Biggest Week in American Birding–a birding festival focused on warblers and other migrants.

Laura, Ryan Brady, and Dick Verch are plotting strategy for doing a Big Day to raise funds for the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative.

The Great Blue Herons of Sapsucker Woods are individuals to be reckoned with.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s nest cam focused on a pair of Great Blue Herons is providing an abundance of scientific information even as observers find themselves increasingly bonded emotionally to the birds.

Is it possible for two birds to hatch from the same egg?

Some recent research on chickadees found that foraging chickadees and nuthatches actually help spur the growth of forests, and that chickadees make different warning sounds depending on the degree of danger they perceive.

People can’t help but anthropomorphizing the Great Blue Herons they’re watching in the heron cam.

Incubating eggs seems like such a peaceable responsibility, but it turns out there is way more action and strife than one might expense.

Laura talks about brood patches; a narrated slideshow with lots of photos is available at the transcript link.

Laura spent a lot of time watching a pair of Great Blue Herons nesting in Sapsucker Woods when she was Science Editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This year the Lab put a nest cam in the nest tree, and Laura is just as focused on the birds, from 1200 miles away, as she was when they were right there.

Is it better to trust the hummingbird map on eBird or on hummingbirds.net? That is hard to say.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a nest cam showing Red-tailed Hawks up close and personal.

73 million packages of Scott’s Miracle-Gro birdseed were laced with bird-killing pesticides, killing captive and wild birds.

Laura has treasured the American Birding Association since she first became aware of the organization, and she’s very pleased that this year they named one of her favorite birds their official Bird of the Year.

Spring’s early arrival is making Laura nervous about climate change even as she’s enjoying the birds.

Eagles are a major, and conspicuous, element of spring migration.

Robins are stirring our dreams of spring

How do birds deal when they’re sick? And how many birds can a person see while under the weather?

Laura talks about this history of Daylight Savings Time

In this program, sponsored by a grant from Vickie and Barry Wyatt, Laura talks about a cool little bird of the south.

Laura talks about the birds and the bees

Laura and her family got to see some Snowy Owls when they were at Breezy Point in New York City.

Laura spent Groundhog Day in Washington, DC. Cherry blossoms and bees were strong evidence of climate change.

Laura had a splendid time at the Space Coast Birding Festival.

Imagine plunge-diving over 100 feet straight into the Atlantic Ocean to grab a fish. That’s everyday business for Northern Gannets. Young gannets were among the worst-affected birds during the BP oil spill, but Laura’s looking forward to seeing healthy ones when she’s in Florida.

Here it is, one of the biggest Snowy Owl invasion years in memory, and Laura hasn’t seen a single one.

A Black Skimmer’s bizarre bill, the bottom significantly longer than the top, is as thin as a knife. Why is such a thing so useful?

In this program, sponsored by Vickie and Barry Wyatt, Laura talks about the danger of succumbing to cynicism.

Over a lifetime, we who spend time in nature are given more opportunities for having our breath taken away than many people are.

Imagine handling the oldest known Northern Shrike.

The DVD for The Big Year has two different versions. Laura much prefers The Extended Version, which has sustained narration by John Cleese.

Laura talks about how difficult it is to piece together what Evening Grosbeak population levels were historically.

Evening Grosbeaks were once an important part of the fundamental fabric of life.