How many feathers does a bird have? Do birds sleep while in flight? Why do Blue-Footed Boobies have blue feet? How do migrating birds know where to go and how to get there? For these and hundreds of other questions, The Bird Watching Answer Book has expert answers. Written by Laura Erickson, science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this book is the authoritative source for information on birds of all kinds.
Laura Erickson has been fascinated with birds since she could stand on the sofa and watch city pigeons out her Chicago two-flat window when she was a toddler. She has been avidly birding since 1975, and since then she has been teaching about birds as a local Audubon society field trip leader, elementary and junior high school teacher, "For the Birds" radio program creator and producer, Brownie and Girl Scout leader, public speaker, and writer.
For a few years, she was what she calls a migrant worker, migrating between her house and husband in Duluth, Minnesota, and her job as Science Editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. But she was homesick and returned to Minnesota for good. Now she's a contributing editor to BirdWatching magazine, and still working on "For the Birds," which has been on the air for over 25 years. Wherever she is, she's likely to have her dog Photon along, and to be living with her cat Kasey (once a feral cat who lived on songbirds but now strictly an indoor cat) and her licensed education Eastern Screech-Owl, Archimedes. She has three wonderful adult children, none of whom is a birder but all of whom care about birds and the environment.
