For The Birds

By Brian Kluepfel In his 1970 book “People of the Short Blue Corn: Tales and Legends of the Hopi Indians,” Harold Courlander includes the myth from the Southwest about how many of the birds received their calls. The legend of Yaalpa,

By Brian Kluepfel   A friend stopped by to bless our new home with a bottle of wine, to commiserate about work, to shoot a few hoops. It was a pleasant, crisp late fall afternoon and we were in sterling

By Brian Kluepfel   Although there are many reasons to become a birder, probably the primary reason many do so is because birds are visually stunning. Here in North America, where the number of avian species pales in comparison to

By Brian Kluepfel You might not look at the legendary actor and director Clint Eastwood as a spokesman for birds. But at least in his 1976 film, “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” a somewhat confusing morality play about a peaceful farmer turned

By Brian Kluepfel In 2018, while researching a book about Connecticut, I stumbled upon the life of author Edwin Way Teale, who lived in the state’s “Quiet Corner.” Teale’s four-part book series on the seasons, written between 1951 and 1965,

The bird sings in the forest. Does it seek to be admired for its song?   -Kwai Chang Caine, Kung Fu   A few years ago a young man came with his father to an Audubon Society event. Though he

By Brian Kluepfel   Author Anne Lamott wrote a book several years ago called “Bird by Bird,” which was about both the writing process and life itself. It began with the story of her panic-stricken younger brother freaking out over

By Brian Kluepfel  I began last week writing a doom-and-gloom blog about the red-fronted Macaw, which exists only in a small area of Bolivia’s Andean foothills and dry river valleys, between the cities of Cochabamba, Sucre and Santa Cruz. Che

By Brian Kluepfel I am woefully behind the times, so much so that when humankind goes extinct, the news will take five or six years to reach me, somewhere on a Peruvian mountaintop watching the last DVD player in the

By Brian Kluepfel   I work in a profession dominated by acronyms. And to be honest, I don’t know WTF people around me are talking about half the time. I don’t know whether to cry or LOL, frankly. I get