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Laura Erickson's For the Birds: missing the point - when facts are more important than funny

©Laura Erickson. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

When scores of dead birds began showing up in the Northland this week, folks did what folks around here do: they called Laura Erickson to learn more about it.

The reporters, though, must not be regular listeners/readers of For the Birds; if they were, they would have known that a) birds can, occasionally, become intoxicated by the fermenting berries of some trees and bushes and 2) the dead and injured birds being reported aren't drunk - they eat bugs, not berries.

Dead warblers underneath a window at Essentia. Photographed in Duluth 10/4/18

Even though we're sorely in need of a laugh right now, Laura says she's a little frustrated at people concentrating on the idea of "drunk birds" when the birds aren't drunk but they are dying.  Head injuries, even in birds, aren't very funny, and the facts will sober you up in a hurry.

You can listen to Laura's programs on the topic by clicking here.  Her corresponding blog posts, "Not so very drunk" and "Sober Up" are linked here.

And there is some excellent information here on ways you can keep your backyard birds safe from window strikes.

Credit ©Laura Erickson. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Yellow-rumped warblers are being hit by cars and dying from window strikes as they migrate through our area

Lisa Johnson started her broadcast career anchoring the television news at her high school and spinning country music at KWWK/KOLM Radio in Rochester, Minnesota. She was a reporter and news anchor at KTHI in Fargo, ND (not to mention the host of a children's program called "Lisa's Lane") and a radio reporter and anchor in Moorhead, Bismarck, Wahpeton and Fergus Falls.Since 1991, she has hosted Northland Morning on KUMD. One of the best parts of her job includes "paying it forward" by mentoring upcoming journalists and broadcasters on the student news team that helps produce Northland Morning. She also loves introducing the different people she meets in her job to one another, helping to forge new "community connections" and partnerships.Lisa has amassed a book collection weighing over two tons, and she enjoys reading, photography, volunteering with Animal Allies Humane Society and fantasizing about farmland. She goes to bed at 8pm, long before her daughter, two cats, or three dogs.
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