In June 2013 during my Conservation Big Year, when I still needed to see an endangered Roseate Tern, I learned that I had a good chance of seeing one or more feeding at Popham Beach State Park in Maine. Sure enough, I saw one there—the only Roseate Tern I saw all year—but that listing conquest […]
Author: Laura Erickson
Hog Island Audubon Camp sound recordings!
I’m an instructor at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Bremen, Maine. Last week I was helping with the Breaking into Birding class, and this week I’m doing the Joy of Birding class with lots of other instructors. This morning was quiet, with the new instructors not yet here and most of the staff gone, and […]
Virginia Rails!
I consider myself a bird watcher, but even with some high-frequency hearing loss, many more of the birds I count in a given day are heard rather than seen. I get a lot of pleasure and joy when I get a good look and hear some songs or calls, but for the most part, just […]
Spring Migration Update
More and more birds are arriving in the north woods now. On Thursday the 12th I had my first hummingbird of the season along with a Least Flycatcher and Black-and-white Warblers in my own yard, and I’ve had a few warblers here and there. A few Yellow-rumps and several Pine Warblers were on territory on […]
Warbler Day
Today is the day I celebrate every year as Warbler Day. Up here in Duluth, warbler migration is just kicking in, but in other places I’ve lived—Chicago; Lansing, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin; and Ithaca, New York—warbler migration usually is peaking right about now. I selected May 11 as Warbler Day because that’s the day I identified […]
Savoring a Slow Spring
The first time I ever noticed my aspen tree in full bud, back in early May in 1982, at least one Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and Yellow-rumped Warbler could be seen in its branches just about every time I looked. That has been one absolute constant I can count on no matter how spring unfolds […]
The Cruelty of a South Wind
One of my friends recently moved to Duluth from Bemidji. He seemed utterly distraught on April 14, when the high here was 43 degrees but 78 in Bemidji. I don’t know if T.S. Eliot was thinking specifically about Duluth when he wrote that April is the cruelest month. Other places may have it as bad, […]
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
One of my friends on facebook, who lives outside Chicago, was thrilled a few days ago when a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker spent a day in a conifer right outside her window. Jodie Cregier Nettelhorst reacted pretty much the way I do when I get a sapsucker in my yard. She said, “I feel so lucky. It […]