StarTribune, June 2019

"Make Minneapolis Parks for all living beings, not just humans"

"Our own survival depends on a healthy ecosystem, which cannot happen without wildlife--from bees and other pollinatos, to birds, to mammals and turtles--we need them all."

StarTribune, January 2019

"The same nature walk, and then a new sketch"

A south Minneapolis woman opens up her colorful journal — art and observations — from daily walks in Roberts Bird Sanctuary. 

Finance & Commerce, March 20, 2018:

"Flock of bird experts to study U.S. Bank Stadium"

"The Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis and other wildlife advocates are bringing some of the nation’s top bird mortality experts to town as they renew their push to protect birds from fatal collisions with the glass walls of U.S. Bank Stadium."

Published in 2017:

Spring ABCs in Roberts Bird Sanctuary

by Diane Erdmann 

On a drizzly, early spring day in March 2016, a walk through Roberts Bird Sanctuary by Linden Hills resident Diane Erdmann was transformed by her seeing the letter G in a stand of grape vines. After slowing down to look for other letters in nature within the Sanctuary, Diane realized that "...my eyes were opened to details around me that I would have missed had I continued with my originally planned brisk walk." Diane had brought her camera on this walk, and the result is her picture book, Roberts Bird Sanctuary Spring ABCs, filled with beautiful photos and wise words describing each letter in poetic detail.

Contact Diane for more information or to order a copy.

Southwest Journal, June 2016

"Bird Oasis in the City"

“It’s just a wonderful place to go observe birds,” David Zumeta said. 

“I encourage people to go explore it and respect it.”

MPR News, May 2014
Remembering Ornithologist Thomas Sadler Roberts

Roberts wrote Birds of Minnesota, regarded by many as a definitive account of Minnesota's winged creatures. His biographer, Sue Leaf, spoke about him recently at the wildlife sanctuary named in his honor.

University of Minnesota, February 2014

Exploring Minnesota's Natural History blog

The Winter Bird Life of Minnesota

In February of 1916, Thomas Sadler Roberts, associate curator of the Zoological Museum, released the first of what he termed “Occasional Papers,” a series of bulletins issued from the “Zoological Division of the Geological and Natural History Survey.” The content of volume number one, titled “The Winter Bird-Life of Minnesota,” was actually first published in the December 1915 edition of “Fins, feathers and fur” (now known as the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer), a publication of the Minnesota Game and Fish Commission (now known as the Department of Natural Resources). 

Minnpost May 2013

'A Love Affair With Birds' chronicles the life of Thomas Sadler Roberts

Roberts’ time, which spanned nearly eight decades of Minnesota history, is brought richly to life in these pages as Leaf follows him on bird-watching expeditions into the wilds of Uptown Minneapolis and beyond. She wonderfully describes a beautiful, lost world in which the St. Anthony Falls ran clean and free; whippoorwills called from the gracious oak and prairie savannah of today’s Uptown Minneapolis; and a diverse profusion of birds nested in the fertile marshes that now lie under the lawns of the Walker Art Center. Roberts watched great flocks of passenger pigeons darkening the sky, until they did not.

Star Tribune, March 2011

Dogs and a Bird Sanctuary

by Jim Williams

"The Roberts sanctuary is a gem. I’ve been there many times. It’s an urban oasis for birds and birdwatchers. It does not exist in kind anywhere else. Given land use and availability, the park board could not duplicate it. It needs to be protected..."

 Photo of thrush in Roberts Bird Sanctuary by Jim Williams

In 2017, as part of the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board's Roberts Capital Improvements Project, new signs were installed at all entrances.

Future signage in the visitors shelter will help to educate people about the history of the Sanctuary and its importance to birds and other wildlife.

The fence is a "cue of care" to people that this natural area is highly valued and protected as a bird sanctuary.

Some areas of the chain link fence have spaces to allow wildlife passage.

A new path was also created between the visitors shelter and Bossen Lane inside the new cedar rail fence on the east side.