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Joel on May 19th, 2013

  Project Passenger Pigeon seeks to mark the centenary of the passenger pigeons extinction. Here was a bird with a population that likely exceeded a billion birds as late as 1860 but was driven to near extinction in forty years by unremitting exploitation and final extinction on September 1, 1914 when the last of the [...]

Continue reading about Project Passenger Pigeon WIngs Towards 2014

Joel on May 7th, 2013

I have been making winter trips to Duluth since 1969 when Bob Russell guided my mom, sister, and me on a foray into the north woods. (To placate my non-birding sister, I offered her varying sums if she spotted life birds: for an ivory gull she would have received- if my parents backed my promise- [...]

Continue reading about I Break for Boreals

Joel on September 1st, 2012

I made three trips to Markham Prairie this year with a total of nine different companions. The first trip was on July 21 to see how things were doing before my talk on prairies scheduled the next day for the Mike Novak radio show. I try to do my heaviest recruitment to share the beauties [...]

Continue reading about Summer Prairie 2012

Joel on August 18th, 2012

Each of this year’s two visits to Prairie Island Indian Community were a week later than usual due to previous commitments by our hosts and guides, Community biologists Brad Frazier and Gabe Miller. This did not affect the first set of surveys but there was probably some reduction in bird activity by July 9-12 when [...]

Continue reading about Of Drought and Dickcissels: Prairie Island 2012

Joel on August 1st, 2012

It doesn’t look like we are going on any lengthy trips this summer so Cindy suggested a quick get away to a place neither of us had ever been before, Cahokia Mounds (sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t). We left home on July 5, fleeing the Chicago area while it was [...]

Continue reading about Cahokia Calls

Joel on June 26th, 2012

I had not seen Kirtland’s warblers since the late 1980s and it is a bird that has long interested me. Back in seventh grade (fall of 1966), I had to write a report on a local bird and I called the Field Museum asking which rare birds are found here. They mentioned the Kirtland’s as [...]

Continue reading about In Search of the Million Dollar Bird

Joel on June 10th, 2012

I like showing off our natural gems to people who are not familiar with them. It takes a day, but the Kankakee River country is so unlike the rest of the Chicago region it is high on my list of places to show-off. The Kankakee Fish and Game Area in Starke County is comprised of [...]

Continue reading about New Birds Through New Eyes

Joel on June 10th, 2012

Yellow head, yellow head (John Cassady) A year ago, a small article about Project Passenger Pigeon (P3) appeared in Birdwatchers Digest. Among those who read the piece was Susan Wegner, an art historian at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. She was born and raised near Fond du Lac, WI and has passenger pigeon in her [...]

Continue reading about Susan, El Dorado, and Me

Joel on June 10th, 2012

The Spring Bird Count, this year on May 5, is always a highlight of the season. And, as I always do, I go out a few days ahead of time to scout my area. The scouting is less about finding birds and more about checking areas and assembling an itinerary. Indeed, actually encountering good birds [...]

Continue reading about Morning in the Marsh

Joel on June 10th, 2012

If you think about the life of a migrant bird, there are three basic periods: breeding, wintering, and migration. There is no doubt that we know the least about migration, which is also likely the most dangerous: that patch of woodland in the middle of a soybean desert that provides refuge and food for a [...]

Continue reading about Finding Answers