A number of years ago I noticed little wooden bird houses popping up in farmer’s fields in upstate New York. This was a part of a bluebird recovery effort. I was curious about this because I had never seen a bluebird and like to hear positive stories of human/animal interactions.

Last year when I visited the Berkshires, the neighbors next to my in-laws had several bluebird houses up in their backyard. They had several bluebird families living in them and I finally saw my first bluebird. If you have never seen one, you will be blown away at the beautiful shade of dark blue on their back feathers.

This year, my  in-law’s neighbor gave them a nest box and now they too have bluebirds in their yard. In fact, I saw more bluebirds than any other bird while I was there this past weekend. I tried to photograph them, but didn’t get very close. My best attempt is below, but here’s a site with a lot of information and photos.

Increasing urban sprawl is creating more homes for people by taking away habitats for wildlife, forcing nature’s creatures to become vagabonds on the move or leaving them homeless on the streets.

In fact, according to The Biodiversity Project, a leading environmental advocacy group dedicated to conservation initiatives, one million acres of open space, including parks, farms and natural areas are lost to sprawl each year.

However, others are fighting to reverse this damage from development by providing food, water and shelter for evicted animals, transforming their own backyards into wildlife sanctuaries.

Detroit Lakes resident, Liz Ballard, lives in town not far from Highway 10. Entering her yard from the paved sidewalk one stets through an arch of native vines into a haven of ferns and wildflowers with birds chirping, bees buzzing and chipmunks running across the visitors’ feet.

Though Ballard said that she started her gardens when she moved into town for her own benefit as well — to use as an escape from the city.

“I’ve always been a country girl,” Ballard said. “I missed seeing the animals.”

National Wildlife Federation Ambassador for the Wildlife Habitat Program and sustainable garden landscaper, Mat Paulson, said that the trend of natural gardening is increasing in northern Minnesota as homeowners learn more about the many benefits.

Sustainable gardening attracts wildlife and also helps the environment reducing dependency on pesticides, improving air and soil quality and cutting down energy use on regular garden maintenance. Con

Paulson also said that natural gardening is beneficial for your pocketbook. As native plants and shrubs are already tolerant of Minnesota weather conditions, less care and cash needs to be placed towards watering and expensive fertilizers.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, attracting wildlife is a simple accomplishment:

• Food — This may include providing bushes with berries, flowers with nectar and pollen or supplemental bird, squirrel, and butterfly feeders.

• Water — There needs to be presence of standing water that wildlife can access for drinking and bathing. This can include seasonal pools, birdbaths, rain gardens or ponds.

• Cover — Wildlife need shelter from bad weather conditions and predators such as wooded areas, bramble patches, rock piles and roosting boxes.

• Places to raise young — Wildlife also requires special areas to bear young. Some examples include mature trees, dead trees, dense shrubs and nesting boxes.

Providing these habitat conditions will make your home a portal to the great outdoors. To learn more about sustainable gardening to attract wildlife, obtaining your backyard wildlife habitat certification and listen to Mat Paulson speak, attend the “Creating a Wild Backyard” workshop at Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge at 2 p.m. on July 12 at the visitors center.

Check out this great article in the Daily News by writer Amy Sacks. There are wonderful suggestions for nature walks, ranger tours, etc. all available in New York City.

Here’s a list of what we found on Saturday. Alison took the notes while I took the photos. There was so much information, it would have been hard to do both!

1. Hedge Mustard
2. Poor Man’s Pepper
     a. good in stews and salads. Prevents cancer cells from developing.
3. Garlic Mustard
     a. very invasive! Eat a lot of it.
     b. Use it in pesto
     c. Root is also edible and tastes like horseradish
     d. Is in season well into May
     e. Flower bud looks like broccoli and the best flavor is when the plant is blossoming.
4. Lesser Celandine
     a. in the buttercup family
     b. eat it before it flowers. It’s toxic after it flowers.
     c. Best cooked w/ rice
5. Gout Weed
     a. Parsley and celery flavor
     b. Use it like parsley.
6. Kentucky Coffee Tree Seeds
     a. Seeds and green pulp are poisonous raw. Roast them about 1.5 hours at 300º. Grind them to       make decaf coffee.
     b. Can be added to hot chocolate and chocolate cake.
7. Star of Bethlehem
     a. Poisonous to eat
     b. Can be confused with field garlic. It has a distinguishing white stripe that field garlic doesn’t.
8. Japanese Knot Weed
     a. Related to rhubarb
     b. Peel the stem and eat it. Don’t eat the leaves.
     c. Makes a nice fruit compote. 1 part knot weed to 10 parts fruit.
     d. Short fat stems are optimal
     e. Has pretty, lacy flowers in the fall
9. Hercules Club (aka Angelica Tree or Devil’s Walking Stick)
     a. Shave the thorns off with a knife and steam the developing shoots like asparagus.
10. Red Bud Blossoms
     a. put them in salad or toss in batter and make fritters
11. Chickweed
     a. Eat leaves, stems and flowers raw or cooked
     b. Tastes like corn
     c. Loads of vitamins
     d. To cook: wash and chop into bite-sized pieces. Cook (steam the wet leaves) in a pot on low          heat until wilted. In a separate pot cook garlic in oil and toss together.
12. Mugwort
     a. It’s in the wormwood family
     b. You can make a tea to help with PMS
13. Field Garlic
14. Daylily
     a. Has tubers that look like potatoes.
     b. The leaves taste like green beans.
     c. You can eat the leaves, stems, tubers or flowers
     d. 1 in 50 people have digestive problems w/ daylilies. Gradually build up to eating them.
15. Sassafras
     a. Branches grow out at 45º angles from trunk
     b. Smells like root beer
     c. Wash the root, simmer for 20 minutes and chill the tea
     d. Can also use the cambium of the root as cinnamon
16. May Apple
     a. Poisonous except for the ripe fruit
17. Violet
     a. Use the leaves in salad
18. Burdock
     a. Delicious root. Cut the root razor thin on the diagonal, simmer it and put it in rice or a stew.
     b. Leaf has silver, hairy underside.

Well Atlanta has set up a webcam to spy on a pair of nesting falcons. Read the press release below to learn more about this pair.

Atlanta’s most prominent falcons couple is back in the public eye.

A Web camera at www.georgiawildlife.com is again providing frequent updates on two adult peregrine falcons and their nest outside the 51st-floor offices of the McKenna, Long & Aldridge law firm in downtown Atlanta.

The protected raptors, which typically mate for life, began laying eggs February 27. They have four now. The nestlings are expected in early April. The young will leave the nest at about 5 weeks old.

Clay C. Long, founding partner and a former chairman of the law firm, said the peregrines offer an annual treat, watching the young “from birth through the transition from down to feathers, then learning to fly and to hunt, and finally ending with our couple sending their young off in the world to find their own cliffs on which to dwell.”

Peregrines were removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species because of a successful population recovery effort, but Georgia still lists the birds as rare. There are only two known peregrine pairs nesting in Georgia, both in Atlanta, said Jim Ozier, a Nongame Conservation Section program manager with the state Wildlife Resources Division.

Peregrines are possibly the fastest animal in the world. Their dives, used to catch birds in flight, have been clocked at more than 200 mph.

The Wildlife Resources Division and the world have watched falcons nest at McKenna, Long & Aldridge for five years, thanks to the law firm and a grant from The Garden Club of Georgia. One of the first peregrines nesting there was released in Atlanta by the state, in a partnership with Georgia Power and Zoo Atlanta, Ozier said.

The new falcons will face an urban environment plump with pigeons and other prey on the wing but also packed with potential hazards such as windows and traffic. Two of the three peregrines that hatched on the high-rise balcony last year were later treated for injuries.

“The young have to learn how to survive in the city,” Ozier said.

To see this year’s nest, go to www.georgiawildlife.com and click “Conservation,” then “Species of Concern” and the peregrine falcon Web cam link under “Bird Conservation” label. The view shows the planter in which the birds nest. Frequently hit your computer’s refresh, or reload page, button: The images are updated every 30 seconds.

wild parsnip

On her tour, my friend found wild parsnips, sassafras and other edible plants. It was pretty amazing because almost nothing is green or blooming yet.

Here’s a schedule of his classes. I think I’m going to the one on April 18th in Prospect Park.

This Sunday, friends of ours from Lindsay’s school took Lindsay for the day. We had 4 hours to ourselves and decided to walk around Prospect Park. We went to the Audubon Center, which somehow I had never visited. The 1905 Beaux Arts building was nearly torn down in the 1960s, but NYC granted it landmark status. The Prospect Park Alliance teamed up with Audubon New York to restore the boathouse and in 2002 it was completed. It’s a really lovely building that houses the nation’s first urban Audubon Center.

They have lots of events, including free birdwatching and nature walks every saturday and sunday. We took a nature walk and saw many of the birds we saw the day before at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Our guide was funny and nice and really knew his stuff. While we were out on the tour, we ran into a friend on a different tour. Her tour was a 4-hour guide to wild edibles. She’s planning an article on Depression eating. I really want to take the next tour, which will be in Central Park and will be at a time when more plants are out.

I’m not very good at identifying water birds, so we kind of looked over the shoulders of other birders and asked for help. Some were dressed as though they were going on a safari, which was kind of hilarious. Reminded me of the photo nerds I have spent countless hours around.

I really like the quiet color palette of winter.

Hundreds and hundreds of snow geese

* How will this winter’s snow and cold temperatures influence bird populations?
* Where are winter finches and other “irruptive” species that appear in large numbers during some years but not others?
* How will the timing of birds’ migrations compare with past years?
* How are bird diseases, such as West Nile virus, affecting birds in different regions?
* What kinds of differences in bird diversity are apparent in cities versus suburban, rural, and natural areas?
* Are any birds undergoing worrisome declines that point to the need for conservation attention?

Here’s some information for how you can participate.
IT’S AS EASY AS 1, 2, 3!

1. Plan to count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count, February 13–16, 2009. You can count for longer than that if you wish! Count birds in as many places and on as many days as you like—one day, two days, or all four days. Submit a separate checklist for each new day. You can also submit more than one checklist per day if you count in other locations on that day.

2. Count the greatest number of individuals of each species that you see together at any one time. You may find it helpful to print out your regional bird checklist to get an idea of the kinds of birds you’re likely to see in your area in February. You could take note of the highest number or each species you see on this checklist.

3. When you’re finished, enter your results through our web page. You’ll see a button marked “Enter Your Checklists!” on the website home page beginning on the first day of the count (February 13, 2009). It will remain active until the deadline for data submission on March 1, 2009.

Some people find it helpful to fill out the form before entering it on the website. By printing it off ahead of time, they know what information they need to be aware of, such as snow depth, for example.

If you’re new to bird watching, you might want to check out our “Learn About Birds” section. You’ll find help with tricky bird identifications, choosing binoculars, bird feeding tips, and much more.

So I know that this blog is supposed to be all about all things urban, and it hasn’t been lately. I went to France with my sister to visit my father. He’s not well, so he spent a lot of time sleeping. During his afternoon naps, my sister and I went out on photo safaris. And just for the record…although I live in one of the biggest cities, I am a nature lover. We go up to the Berkshires to visit my husband’s family and I soak in as much nature as I can while I’m there. 

So while my father was resting and the relentless French hunters were in the woods shooting, my sister and I walked in the woods (wearing bright colors thank you very much) and took photos. We were absolutely amazed at the diversity of mushrooms. 

We ran into a man who was mushroom hunting. He was an elegant older gentleman with a white handlebar mustache. I couldn’t have made up a more perfect French mushroom hunter if I tried. Okay, I guess I would have given him a basket instead of a plastic shopping bag, but I doubt I would have thought of the mustache. I spoke with him in my halting French and asked him what he was looking for. He had two different types of mushrooms that we never did see ourselves. One was a charcoal gray mushroom and one was called sanguine, or something like that with blood (sang) at the beginning of the word. That was very descriptive, because where the mushroom was broken, red liquid seeped out of it. It left very believable blood drops on the sides of his bag.

Below are a few of the mushrooms we saw. The tiny yellow ones that look like the ends of a pencil eraser are called bird’s nests. When the spores are ready the tops come off and you see tiny little puff balls inside the nest that resemble eggs. Absolutely tiny and amazing!