John Humphreys: Citizen Reporter

If you have any fondness for birds and have any room at all for a birdfeeder, then Project FeederWatch (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/ ) is a MUST. This year's count just started!

Basically, at a nominal cost, we ‘FeederWatchers', thousands of us across North America, regularly count the birds seen at our feeders and send the information to Cornell University.  

Year in, year out, their world class Ornithology Department crunches the numbers and analyzes the movements of different species geographically, and also the long-term trends in populations and locations.

Last winter, 117,000 people were involved across all fifty states and almost every Canadian province, counting the maximum number of every species they saw at any one time. Although you might see three chickadees at one go, and later see another three, of course there is no real way of telling whether they are the same or ...read full post

I drink a lot of wine.

Well, hopefully not too much, but you know what I mean. Wine is one of my three food groups (cheese and bread are the others). I drink all three colors, and am not prejudiced as to country  - although I love the Spanish reds, and the French and Italian whites....and a bunch of New World ones too.

And you can buy organic ones. Although I am not too paranoid about pesticide residues in my body, I know that it makes a difference to the environment of Chile or Washington State not having those insecticides contaminating their forests, fields and streams.

But ......each time I open a bottle, deep green that I am, I either rejoice or curse. Because the bottle will be sealed with natural cork or...something else.

Because nowadays, you get a lot of advice on corks. Yes, really. Things like, "who needs cork....you know, it is a lot more hygienic without cork....don't be snooty about screw top bottles...and the ...read full post

In the last blog, "'Tis a wild, wild, wild garden we need to create", I started with my theme of tackling wildlife gardening from the ground up. Or rather, the lawn.....and how we got the balance between grass and garden plants all WRONG.

It starts with a new house. Developers tend to have favorite designs. First, a street tree or two with a perfectly circular mulched area at the base. Then, borders under the windows, generally with a cherry tree placed too close to the house and a series of unidentifiable shrubs that are always green but do absolutely nothing else (no flowers, no autumnal glory, no colorful berries)

Of course, after a time we realize their mistakes. The cherry tree is chopped down. The anonymous green shrubs are either tolerated or replaced by an ‘evergreen of color' like a blue Juniper or golden Chamaecyparis.  And we buy pansies for the winter and spring and annuals for the summer. Every year.

And heft spadefuls of ...read full post

In his incomparable book The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes Americans, quite justifiably, as creatures of corn. This is because of the ubiquitous nature of the plant - feeding us directly, feeding cows (who would be a lot happier eating regular grass), being turned into high fructose corn syrup to sweeten our food the cheapest way possible, being converted into countless food additives....corn is indeed king of our landscape.

Unless you are in the suburbs of course. There, anyone can observe that another grass has domesticated Homo sapiens - the common or garden lawn grass. We are its creatures, manicuring it, feeding it, ensuring no other plant crowds it  to mar its perfect greenness, and poisoning any insect that dares crop it. Even if we might admire a natural, wooded landscape on an opposing hillside, we prefer our own yard to be a pristine green sward. In fact, together with a deck and grill, owning such a lawn is the dream of ...read full post