Nationally recognized birder and author Laura Erickson has been fascinated with birds since she could stand on the sofa and watch city pigeons and sparrows out her Chicago two-flat window when she was a toddler. She has been producing "For the Birds" as a radio program and now a podcast since 1986. She's received the American Birding Association's Roger Tory Peterson Award (2014), the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology's Golden Passenger Pigeon Award (2022), the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union's Roberts Award (2021), and other national and regional awards for her conservation and education work and ornithological research. Her books have received regional and national honors including the 2023 American Horticultural Society Book Award, the 2012 Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, and the 1997 National Outdoor Book Award. Laura served as Science Editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York from 2008–2010, and has been a columnist and contributing editor of BirdWatching Magazine since 2011. Her website, which provides easy access to her blog, almost four decades of radio programs, all her bird photographs, and more, is at www.lauraerickson.com.
