Old Sol might be down to his last 4 billion years but the new SOLAR will just keep serving your needs. It's like Google, only better.
The College of St. Scholastica Library
1200 Kenwood Avenue, Duluth, MN 55811
Thanks to the keen eye of Biology Professor Dr. Pam Freeman, the Library was able to add its 138th species The Catalog of Birds.
SAW-WHET OWL
Cryptoglaux acadica - 2024
This species is similar to the preceding [Richardson’s Owl], but is smaller and more of a brownish color all over. It has no ear tufts. They are very quiet little birds, nocturnal in their habits, and cannot see well in the strong light, a fact that has allowed them to be captured by hand from their roosting places in the trees.
Nest. They will usually select the hole of a woodpecker, in which to lay their four white eggs. Their eggs are laid and the young are hatched and out of the nests before the breeding time for woodpeckers, so that the same home may be occupied later by another family.
Text form Reed, Chester. Birds of Eastern North America, 1895.
Image: "Saw-Whet Owls." Stained glass by Jeffrey Russell, from MN Volunteer Magazine.
Dr. Heather Brown's lab is focused on developing low-cost methods for routine environmental monitoring. We are currently developing a hand-held, field-deployable spectrofluorimeter capable of quantification of specific contaminants of emerging concern. In-house developed, DNA-based molecular aptamer beacons will provide the concentration-dependent fluorescent light specific to unique contaminants detected in the instrument.
Raven Room
Friday, November 8, 2024
3:40 - 5:00 pm CDT
Librarian & Archivist Heidi Johnson presented her paper “Sisters: Flannery O’Connor’s Connections to Women Religious” at the conference Flannery O’Connor’s Second Century: Looking Forward, Looking Back, held in O’Connor’s home town of Milledgeville, Georgia, as part of the “Flannery at 100,” a series of events celebrating the centennial of O’Connor’s birth.
Johnson is one of approximately 90 scholars chosen to present at this event sponsored by the Flannery O’Connor Institute at Georgia College & State University and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Johnson’s paper explores a line O’Connor wrote in a letter from 1963, “I find that some of my best readers are Sisters.” Why was it that O’Connor felt that “women religious” (nuns & sisters) understood her writing better than anyone? In answering this question, Johnson found a deep connection, both personal and scholarly, between O’Connor and 19 sisters, including a former President of The College of St. Scholastica.
The Vesper Sparrow seems like the right bird to be seen behind a monastery. Librarian Brad Snelling bagged this liturgical crooner with a combination of old fashioned patience and a new fashioned phone app, Merlin, from the Cornell Ornithology Lab!
"The name Vesper Sparrow is given this bird because of its habit of tuning up along towards evening; it is perhaps more often known as the "Bay-winged Sparrow" or "Grass Finch." they are found chiefly in dry pastures or along dusty roadsides, where they start from the ground in front of us, their white tail feathers showing prominently as they fly, so there will be no mistake as to their identity."
Song. - A clear, ascending series of whistles, given from a fence post or bush top; call, a sharp chip."
Text & image from: Chapman, Frank. Bird Life: A Guide to the Study of our Common Birds. 1919.