birding

Looking out at a landscape -- any landscape, whether it be from a vantage overlooking the Red River Valley or on top a birch ridge high above a favorite lake...

Last week I wrote about the fee-bee song of male black-capped chickadees -- a sure sign of transition from one season to another. As such, it won't be long and...

Amazing. The "winter" has for all practical purposes come and gone and I never even noticed. Many people have told me they have never experienced a milder winter, a winter...

It's February. And while lakes and rivers and ponds remain locked in ice, the days are growing longer and winter is more than half over. Indeed, in about a month...

Raptors are a group of birds that include owls, eagles, ospreys, hawks, harriers, kites, falcons, and vultures. They are what we typically refer to as birds of prey. Most raptors...

When most of us think of squirrels, we probably think of tree squirrels. But the fact is that not all squirrels live in trees. Minnesota is home to a passel...

The 29th running of the annual John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon might be canceled again this year. At the time of this writing, the event's Board of Directors are set...

Based on accounts of many readers who took time to send emails over the past week telling me about their respective red-bellied woodpecker observations, I'd move the species' Minnesota range-line...

Last week's column about red-bellied woodpeckers created a lot of birder buzz. I received no fewer than eight e-mails from readers reporting their personal observations of this fascinating species of...

I recently opened a handwritten letter from a friend of mine. Yes, handwritten! He's written to me before to report interesting avian observations -- some of which have spawned articles...

While meteorological winter has been with us for some time, winter doesn't officially begin until Dec. 22. That day marks the moment when the sun is the farthest south in...

Shush, everyone. You're wading in the marsh. It's summertime, the height of the breeding season for all migrant birds. You're surrounded by tall dense stands of green cattails intermixed with...

In April 2005, a group of wildlife scientists, as told by several news sources, reported observing several "firm" sightings of at least one ivory-billed woodpecker in central Arkansas. The story...

I spent the last hours of the last day of Minnesota's 2011 firearms deer hunting season sitting in a portable tree stand high in a spruce hoping for a glimpse...

The Colorado Rockies look much different today than the first time I saw the rugged snow-capped peaks, south-facing sagebrush slopes and pine-covered northern aspects six autumns ago. Instead of the...