Laura Erickson's For The Birds

This spring, both the 17-year "Great Northern Brood" cicadas and the 13-year "Great Southern Brood" will emerge from underground. These innocuous insects cause absolutely no damage, but their noise is astonishingly loud, so many people over-react. The pesticides people used during the "Great Eastern Brood" emergence in 2021 are believed to have killed a lot of birds.

The American Birding Association's Bird of the Year for 2024 is one of the rarest birds not listed as endangered or threatened.

For the first time, the American Birding Association named a warbler its Bird of the Year.

Why have so many Ancient Murrelets, who belong in the northern Pacific Ocean, turned up in the Great Lakes, and even in Tennessee, in late 2023? We may never know. (The accompanying photo is of the Two Harbors bird, taken by Erik Bruhnke on December 9, 2023.)

Laura spent last Wednesday birding in the Sax-Zim Bog with Erik Bruhnke. Highlights were a Great Gray Owl and a snowshoe hare.

Laura's first bird of the year was a Pileated Woodpecker. In addition to enjoying her backyard birds, she's preparing for her trip to Hawaii next month, by studying the birds and getting herself back in shape for the adventure.

Laura cancelled an exciting trip for this coming February, but is doing well enough that she cancelled her cancellation.

Laura's surgery was successful and she's back looking at, and photographing, birds!

Laura went birding in northern Wisconsin Saturday.

When we read books to toddlers, we're not only enlarging their picture of the world--we're enlarging out own.

Reading to babies and toddlers has a great many benefits for us adults as well as the wee ones.

Laura talks about the pros and cons of feeding Florida Scrub-Jays, and why it's best to follow the current anti-feeding guidelines.

Laura has a lot to be thankful for today.

Wild Turkeys are splendid birds, but maybe their introduction into areas where they were not historically found wasn't a good idea.

Field guides and bird song books help children to recognize and name the birds around them, and that's a Good Thing.

Must a book be entirely about birds to qualify? Laura doesn't think so. The books Walter is most enjoying right now are in the "Monkey with a Toolbelt" series, and Laura says they can help us teach the important role that birds play in our daily lives.

Taxonomists have been studying, and revising their names for, scrub jays for a long time.

We have no clue how much birds deal with anxiety and worry, but they sure have the capacity to relieve ours.

The Florida Scrub-Jay has many endearing habits which, tragically, don't seem to resonate with Florida's human population.

Why does Laura have such a *personal* love for Florida Scrub-Jays?