Keith Corliss
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It seems I go through this mental exercise every spring, wondering where all the robins are going. Just outside the room where our home computer rests, stands a mature crabapple. Unlike some varieties, this tree is largely ignored by fruit-eating birds during the fall and winter months and usually comes into spring with a decent load of fruit. Whatever slow metabolic processes are taking place in crabapple fruit -- fermentation, sugar changing form, cellular breakdown, etc.-- it seems to take this tree exceptionally long to become palatable to birds.
Last Saturday was such a beautiful day the urge to get out and walk around was overwhelming. Given all the early migratory birds being spotted across the state, it was...
It was almost a month ago when, upon suffering a bad case of cabin fever, I ventured out for a walk in and around Armour Park in West Fargo. The...
In the winter, 2013 edition of Living Bird News there appears an article titled, “Superflight,” by Hugh Powell. Truth is I had never heard the word, much less knew of...
Following Sunday’s snow-and-wind wallop I had plenty of time for coffee and breakfast. Despite having spent the better part of Monday morning clearing my driveway and sidewalks, the street in...
I would sincerely love to relay how fellow West Fargo birder, Dean Riemer and I drove two hours to a wooded tract in northwestern Minnesota last Sunday and relocated a...
If we were to conduct a poll asking people what their favorite literary genre is, we'd get answers all over the chart from science fiction to European history. There's a reason Barnes and Noble carries so many titles, it caters to a reading public with extremely diverse interests. Likewise there is no single category of motion picture that appeals to all, tastes are just too variable to simply corral.
Everyone seems to relish in the annual practice of reviewing the previous 12 months when late December rolls around. It's a nearly sacred rite in some media circles. In the event, dear reader, you are not yet fully exhausted by this, allow me to point out the year's birding highlights from our fair state and county. January saw the continued presence of the snowy owl invasion which had begun early in the winter of 2011-2012.
The potluck dinner was finished, most had already exited into the frosty still air last Saturday when I, too, thanked our hostess and made my way to the car, still scratching my head in awe. How had we done it? Indeed, a loose-knit group of area birdwatchers had gone out that day to tally birds as part of the 113th running of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), billed as the "largest and longest-running Citizen Science program in the world," according to the National Audubon Society's website.
Not surprisingly, the most recent issue of Living Bird News features a bird photograph on its cover, two birds actually. Captured by photographer Tim Laman, the stunning shot depicts a pair of twelve-wired birds-of-paradise. The male's upper half is a resplendent jet black, the rest seemingly dipped in lemon-yellow paint. Coral legs and stoplight-red eyes complete the look while its 12 long thin tail plumes make it appear as if the tropical bird is a Christmas ornament constructed in someone's craft shop. Very few North American birds can approach the sheer gaudiness of most tropical ones.