The Christmas Bird Count

On December 16th, Wild River Audubon will participate in the North American Christmas Bird Count (CBC) for the 47th year. Our CBC is the longest data-collecting endeavor in East-Central Minnesota in the history of the state. And it is not a government program, it is...

The Eurasian Crane, Grus grus

I stepped out the door to the bakery and paused. A faint bugling. Yes, cranes! Overhead! Looked up and saw perhaps twenty birds, flying high and heading south. But this wasn’t Chisago County and those weren’t Sandhill Cranes. I was on the island of Gotland in the...

Preventing Birds from Hitting Windows

An estimated one billion birds in the United States die from window collisions each year. That’s a shocking number and it makes window strikes one of the top three killers of birds, along with habitat destruction and outdoor cats. Birds fly into windows because they...

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)

There seemed to be something amiss in the aspens of the woods by our cabin in northern Wisconsin. It was mid-August and I had been sitting at my writing table when the ruckus wafted in through the open window. I cocked my head to listen. The calls sounded like those...