Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Laura’s in New York City for the week, but she needed to spend at least some time birding, so she took the A Train to Jamaica Bay.

Four British soldiers taken prisoner of war in World War II spent much of their time studying birds they could observe in their imprisonment. Derek Niemann wrote an important book about their ordeals and how their focus on birds helped them endure.

Why do so many authors of books about war use birds as metaphors? Laura talks about an old novel about World War II, Slaughterhouse-Five, and one from 2015, All the Light We Cannot See, which she considers one of the finest books ever written.

Laura strongly recommends Kenn Kaufman’s Kaufman Field Guide to Nature in the Midwest.

A field guide can give you the names of the birds you see, but it’s ever so much more.

Snowy Owls don’t often seem attracted to coffee roasters, but when they are…

On Thanksgiving, Laura received two letters from listeners. Laura is most grateful.

National Geographic is linking to a YouTube video from 2010 showing a cardinal feeding a goldfish. Oddly enough, half a century ago, at least one National Geographic book displayed a black-and-white photo of the same odd behavior.

Sunrise in November is a fine time to be awake.

Laura thinks the word nongame means nongame. Does it?

Laura talks about Minnesota’s new Breeding Bird Atlas and the information it includes about some interesting species.

Minnesota has just completed a project begun in 2009 of atlasing all the breeding birds in the state.

An owl banded in St. Louis County just appeared in another St. Louis County.

Laura reads some letters and comments from listeners.

A horrifyingly untrue online video claims that eagles can choose to undergo a bizarre metamorphosis.

Laura reads from Michael McCarthy’s wonderful book, The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy.

How two little kids saved the life of a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Laura reviews a book that she considers as well researched, passionate, and important as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

Last week a new paper was published about the devastating declines in insects since the 1960s.

A Brooklyn birder named Gus took a video of a cat killing and devouring a Golden-crowned Kinglet. At first, it felt like he was making a nature documentary, but he ended up feeling sad and bereft.

Laura apologizes for referring to ceremonial regalia with a fundamentally disrespectful word.

How can birding be compatible with being a Cubs fan?

When a Smith’s Longspur turned up in Two Harbors and then in Duluth, Laura did her best to see it.

E.O. Wilson believes humans today have a Star Wars civilization with Stone Age emotions and Medieval institutions, and that we’re trapped by the duality of our primate ancestors, chimpanzees and bonobos. Laura thinks we could do better to pay more attention to chickadees.

What makes a moment different from a second or a minute?

This year’s hurricanes have had a devastating effect on birds as well as humans.

Laura spent an hour and a half at Hawk Ridge yesterday, seeing lots of wonderful birds.

Laura and Russ went to the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum this weekend to see the annual Birds in Art exhibit. Laura gives it an enthusiastic thumbs up!

Animal Allies responded to some of Laura Erickson’s concerns about their Adopt a Barn Cat program.

This program originally aired when Laura’s children were young and her family went “birding” to see Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and other extinct species at the Field Museum of Natural History, back in 2000. In 2017, Laura is most distressed that this program displays her utter ignorance about an important issue. In reference to the ceremonial regalia worn by First Nations, she used the word “costumes,” a disrespectful term that trivializes important cultural garb in the same way that it would be disrespectful to refer to a Catholic priest’s vestments or a nurse’s or firefighter’s working clothing as a costume. This trivializes important garb as if the wearer is play acting or pretending to be something else, like a child wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume for Halloween. The overall content of the program has some value, but Laura is mortified that she was so insensitive.

Duluth’s Animal Allies is trying to adopt out feral cats to roam free near warm barns and sheds. This is terrible for birds, other wildlife, and human beings.

Fires out West, flooding and toxins in Houston, and Hurricane Irma–this time of crisis is exactly when we need to talk about climate change.

How has Hurricane Harvey affected wildlife?

How did Laura end up with a dead owl and two drunk fishermen on a crying jag on her front porch in the middle of the night?

Laura talks about her embarrassing, longstanding inability to distinguish birds from frogs. Laura recorded the cane toads in this program in stereo, so preserved that stereo for this program.

Laura remembers her little education bird Archimedes, an Eastern Screech-Owl who died last week.

The current administration is planning to construct a three-mile long levee and border wall right through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.

Sometimes it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason. At least for hummingbirds.

A brilliant ornithologist name Craig Benkman discovered some very important information about Red Crossbills, leading to a whole new species for science.

When extremists on both sides of the political divide dig in their heels, it becomes impossible to work out reasonable compromises.

Laura talks about some of the Arm and Hammer bird trading cards she was given by Don and Lynn Watson.

Laura recently started looking into the old trading cards once found in boxes of Arm and Hammer baking soda.

Laura reported back in 2004 that we were in the Sixth Mass Extinction. News from last week was reporting the same thing, but in the intervening years, we haven’t done a thing about it. The recording for the program, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds, is of the now-extinct Bachman’s Warbler, recorded by G. Stuart Keith in South Carolina on 15 May 1959.

Could a bird have written Invictus?

When adolescent boys go on a murderous rampage against endangered seabirds, what’s the best way to deal with it?

Even as we’ve seen stunning examples of the dangers of lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, our new Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, took a giant step backward by overturning a ban on lead ammunition and fishing tackle in our national parks and national wildlife refuges.

Three different pairs of House Wrens are nesting on Laura’s corner this year.

The most essential requirements for life itself are breathable air and drinkable water.

Chickadees and their communities embody the very best that we human Americans can aspire to.

A new app says it “turns your iPhone or iPad into an automatic bird song identifier.” How well does it live up to that claim? Laura says not so well, for now.

Laura reviews, and strongly recommends, “Merlin,” a bird identification app created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Mosquitoes and ticks are proliferating, but many insects are disappearing.

Tree Swallows never showed up at a lake north of Duluth this year. Where might they be?

In summer, some birds—mostly cardinals and Blue Jays—appear to grow bald, while pelicans don a toupee. What’s going on?

What equipment does Laura use for recording birds? And do you need such an expensive setup?

Why do mother geese and ducks sometimes end up with huge numbers of babies?

Laura finds sounds—natural and human—evocative and magical. Many of her natural sound recordings are now available on her website, all indexed by species.

Laura got a sneak peek preview of the forthcoming Seventh Edition of the National Geographic field guide.

On Tuesday, Laura finished up the last of her Duluth Audubon Spring Warbler Walks.

Sometimes all we need to restore our spirits is one lovely morning.

Laura is adding the content of her book 101 Ways to Help Birds to her website. She’s more than 2/3 done, and is finding that the issues she wrote about are still problems, and most of the information she presented is still very timely.

Last week Laura came upon a heartbreaking reminder why we should drive at the slowest speed that is safe, courteous, and convenient. (Listen carefully starting at 3:48, right when Laura mentions owls, to hear Archimedes, her education Eastern Screech-Owl, chime in softly in the background. His cage is near where Laura records, and he apparently listens to her!)

Bird migration is suddenly hopping!

There are two kinds of spring mornings in Duluth. Non-birders prefer the MMMMs (Magnificent Minnesota Mornings), but sensible birders like the DDDDs (Dull, dank, drizzly, drippy Duluth Days). Why are birders happier in grim weather?

When Laura heard about a Lewis’s Woodpecker in Port Wing, Wisconsin, she grabbed her dog and hopped in the car. It was worth it!

Laura Erickson is making the content of her book, 101 Ways to Help Bird available on her webpage.

An odd bird visited Laura’s feeder last week, and she’s been puzzling over how to describe it correctly, because the scientists don’t agree on the right words.

Spring migration is taking its sweet time, so Laura and participants of her spring warbler walks are savoring it.

Laura reminisces about some Lesser Prairie-Chickens she saw in 2013 and 2014, and talks about a prairie-chicken advocate who needs help after a devastating wildfire destroyed his photo blind and the very lek Laura photographed in 2014.

Many scientists started looking seriously at the problem of bird-window collisions after Dr. Daniel Klem established that as many as a billion birds are killed at US windows every year. Dr. Klem’s painstaking research over almost four decades provides the underpinnings of all the research going on today.

Birds that can survive only near water can be seriously jeopardized by selfish people.

Expecting the worst to happen can be very unrealistic, as a family of Great Blue Herons taught Laura

Time spent with birds can be truly “life giving,” as Douglas Wayne Gray told Laura.

For National Poetry Month, Laura highlights a new book, Birdsong: poems in celebration of birds, with a reading by P. A. Pashibin of her contribution to the book, “Waiting for Fox.”

Laura reads from some recent letters from listeners about Evening Grosbeaks and American Robins.

Chickadees are starting to build a nest in Laura’s neighbor’s yard—she’ll keep us up to date on what’s happening.

Laura’s first warbler walk on Park Point didn’t have a single warbler, and only 15 bird species total, but she still had a great time.

Laura took a fun, unexpected trip to Chicago last weekend, and was rewarded with an unexpected and really cool bird .

Every Tuesday and Thursday in April and May, Laura leads warbler walks for Duluth Audubon Society. What did they see the first day out?

Laura talks about how we measure bird declines and why it’s so difficult to pinpoint why birds disappear at a particular feeding station. She also asks listeners in the Rhinelander, Wisconsin, area to let her know how their backyard feeding went this year.

A WXPR listener has had very few birds at his feeder this year, and asks Laura if he should continue bird feeding.

Of all the birding and ornithology figures Laura has ever known, her greatest hero, as an ornithologist, a conservationist, and a human being, is Chandler Robbins. He died on March 20.

Laura just discovered, after all these years, that the sound balance of her programs is off–she makes the birds louder than they should be relative to her voice. She is trying to make this better.

As of today, Laura has been a birder for 15,354 days. How many chickadees has she seen in that time?

Last week, Laura heard from a WTIP listener who has been seeing an extremely pale Pine Siskin.

The long-awaited ban on using toxic ammo or fishing tackle on any National Wildlife Refuge, just enacted last year, was rescinded last week.

Laura came out of surgery just fine, thinking about chickadees and bird breast muscles.

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of Laura’s first outing as a birdwatcher.

On Saturday, Laura, her friend Lisa, and her little birding dog Pip took a leisurely trip through the Sax-Zim Bog.

Laura spent a February weekend in Lamar, Colorado, at the High Plains Snow Goose Festival.

What can we do about outdoor cats killing birds?

What’s a Eurasian Tree Sparrow doing hanging around the Do North Pizzeria in Two Harbors, Minnesota?

Chickadees are helping Laura deal with some very disconcerting news: a breast cancer diagnosis.

Interesting winter adaptations make a Ruffed Grouse up a tree an arresting sight.

Laura talks about three species that mate for life, and their February courtship rituals.

On the first Sunday of February, when many Americans focus on guacamole and flying pigskins, Laura celebrates Superb Owl Sunday.

Some scientists believe that there are about 18,000 bird species in the world–not just 10,000 as currently understood.

Laura responds to a couple of questions about the Pink-footed Goose she talked about last week.

Laura went from seeing a Pink-footed Goose on Friday to marching with a host of pink-capped members of another species on Saturday.

Laura was in New York City on a wild goose chase on Friday.

What makes us truly rich? Laura finds hope in birds and the Chicago Cubs, remembering that last time they won a World Series, Teddy Roosevelt was putting an end to another Gilded Age.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. But 2016 is over and now Laura faces 2017 with a quiet hope fanned by Terry Tempest Williams’ book Refuge.