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Published quarterly from 1953 - 1955

About the Author: Hazel Russell Bird

Far from being a born naturalist, authoress Hazel Russell Bird assures this column that as a child she was petrified by most flying, and all crawling things. This testifies to the charm of the flying squirrels whose success in captivating authoress Bird is clearly evident in her article REAL ELVES LIVED ON OUR SHELVES. While she first came to south Florida as recently as 1946, she immersed herself at once in its natural history by camping out the first two winters in no less a place than Paradise Key. Her favorite among the wild friends she made there was a cock cardinal who customarily demanded peanut butter to eat with his caterpillars. She has augmented this by camping out a winter on Key Largo and by settling down then, and living close to nature subsequent winters in a pine woods which she and her husband have purchased near Homestead.

Mrs. Bird began writing very early, having a poem published in Franklin P. Adams' newspaper column when she was only five. She has, among other things, done some teaching, secretarial work, advertising, and radio broadcasting. She used to write and put on her own radio program on Station WPTF in Raleigh, North Carolina. For a year here in south Florida Mrs. Bird published a column weekly in the Homestead Leader-Enterprise entitled "Splinters from a Redland Pine."

Authoress Bird was born in New York City, an "only child of poor but honest parents" and "many years ago." This column hopes that it will not be too rash to estimate that "many years ago" might have been when the century was in its teens. She is the wife of vertebrate paleontologist Roland T. Bird who is a consulting editor of Everglades Natural History. She has two daughters, Terry, age 15, and Fay, age 12.