JanDunlap.com

I put away the last bit of Christmas decor yesterday, so now it’s time to dig in to a new year.

A funny thing happened on the MOU listserve last week. (If you aren’t familiar with the listserve, it’s the Minnesota Ornithologists Union’s means of keeping all the birders updated on what bird was seen where, along with other items of interest to Minnesota birders. Since I am a member of the MOU (as is my fictional protagonist Bob White), I get all the emails, and the one that caught my eye last week was a sighting of Northern Bobwhites, which is the premise of my third Birder Murder, titled “A Bobwhite Killing”. Another birder responded to the one who saw the bird, explaining that Northern Bobwhites are no longer considered wild in Minnesota because they have been so domesticated by farms. This is true, as I point out in my ...more...

Maybe I should rename March and make it Predator Month. The first weekend I was in Houston, MN, for the International Festival of Owls. Karla Kinstler and her team of fabulous volunteers put on a great festival as usual, although all the little kids with faces painted like owls probably tickled me the most. I met owlers from all over the region and got to connect with both old and new fans of my Birder Murder series, talking about birding experiences and mystery writing. This last weekend of the month I was in Wabasha, on my first visit to the National Eagle Center. Scott Mehus, one of the program directors there, told me they’d had about 14,000 visitors in March during their month-long celebration of the spring migration. It’s a ...more...