Laura Erickson's For The Birds

Laura's daughter, turning 42 years old on December 10, is facing a hard ordeal.

On December 8, Laura plans to go to sleep on the far side of the Equator.

Tech companies and data centers will squander electricity and water until we impose strict regulations and give them cost incentives.

Why would anyone use AI to create fake birds when reality is so splendid?

Little by little, we've become inured to more and more technological intrusions, some of which bear enormous environmental costs.

It's comprehensive and includes birds of Hawaii now, but is too big to carry in the field, and the font is much too small to be readable for me.

What's a cattle egret doing just outside Duluth around Halloween?

Laura talks about how she protects herself from sunburn, bug bites, and falls while traveling, and also how she manages her heavy equipment in her dotage.

Laura is trying to keep her body fit and healthy so she can keep birding.

Now that Laura's in her seventies, she's developed a few strategies for keeping her mind and body fit for birding tours.

A Black Phoebe, a species of the American Southwest not known for wandering, showed up at Gooseberry Falls this weekend.

On Saturday, Laura saw a brand new, long-coveted state bird for Minnesota--a Chestnut-collared Longspur

Laura tells us about her experiences with a group of little birds that were once considered sparrows.

When Laura was in Guyana, she fell in love with this stunningly beautiful bird, a species that is globally endangered thanks to the pet trade. (Laura is presenting a Zoom program for subscribers to [her blog](https://lauraerickson.substack.com/) on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 7 pm CDT. The invitation is embedded in her blog post, ["You're Invited"](https://lauraerickson.substack.com/p/youre-invited).)

Laura's Guyana trip this year was led by one of the best bird guides Laura has ever spent time with. What makes a good bird guide truly great? Laura will be doing a live Zoom presentation about her Guyana trip for subscribers (free or paid) of her Substack blog next Tuesday night (October 21 at 7 pm CDT). The program will be recorded and made available on her website.

How can we find owls on our own?

The more bird banders learn about owls, the more questions they have.

After saw-whet owls molt out of their baby feathers in summer, it's impossible to look at any Northern Saw-whet Owl and know what sex it is or how old it is unless it's in the hand and we're armed with measuring tools and a black light.

Laura got to spend Saturday night watching saw-whet owls get banded at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory.

Birds flying at night must avoid collisions with obstructions as they take off and land, and with one another as they cruise along. How do they do it?