DIY PVC Pipe Birds | Flamingo, Hummingbird, Heron, Woodpecker & More

Icon of the southwest, organ pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi) is one of the best known species of cacti in the United States.Reaching up to 26 feet in height and 12 feet wide, this slow

UNLIKE MANY VEGETABLE CROPS we grow to eat—which are typically picked young and tender, and therefore grown for a shorter time—the same plant cultivated for a seed harvest must be grown to a much older age, requiring much more water, fertilizer, and chemical controls against pests and diseases.Seed crops are coddled, and regulations on chemical usage when raising them is also looser than on growing the same vegetable for the food market.Besides the pollution and waste of resources this results in, it fails to do something else really important: It yields seed strains that “expect “ this kind of pampering—not ones that are well-adapted to organic growing conditions in our home gardens, where we (hopefully!) don’t rush in with a chemical at every turn of events, or prop things up on synthetics instead of diligent care for our soil.Read More:

IT’S NO NEWS TO YOU THAT I’M A BIRD PERSON (and often described as “birdlike”); to me birds and gardening are inseparable notions. As close as I feel to my feathered companions, I can’t say I’ve ever been as intimate as zoologist Mark Carwardine in the video above. Unbelievable. More bits about birds from my recent travels around the digital realm:

WHAT A WORLD, for better or for worse.  That’s what I think when I click around the internet: that you couldn’t make this stuff up. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of what I’ve been struck by lately in my incessant online travels–a list of links you might want to ponder, too, from the state of the birds to Congress’ latest mental lapse (huh? pizza is a vegetable?), frugal gardening ideas, and more.

First, the BirdNote backstory: In 2002, the then-executive director of Seattle Audubon heard a short public-radio show called StarDate. “We could do that with birds,” she thought. In 2005 the idea became a two-minute, seven-day-a-week public-radio “interstitial” (short program) that recently caught my ear. I asked BirdNote to help answer the recent questions you had asked me. (In case you missed installment Number 1, we tackled: How do birds make themselves at home—even in winter? Week 2 was about birds on the move: the miracle of hummingbird migration, and on flying in formation.)Parts of Ellen’s answers below are in 2-minute audio clips to stream (all in the green links–or you can read the transcripts at those links if you prefer). Here we go:mobbing the bigger guysQ. A lot of us have witnessed, and wondered about, much-smaller birds bravely chasing big raptors overhead, and also small songbirds who seem to mob owls. What’s up with these Davids chasing Goliaths in the

Birds follow the food supply, either staying put, or moving in one of several different styles of migration, including the unexpected occasional one called irruption. (Above, an irruptive pine siskin.)I asked Eric Lind, Director of Audubon New York’s Constitution Marsh Center and Sanctuary in Garrison, New York, about how birds follow the food. We also talked about best practices for supplemental feeding, if you choose to offer seed and suet and such as they do in winter at the Marsh, a 270-acre tidal wetland on the east shore of the Hudson River. The site provides foraging, nesting and resting habitat to more than 200

Just as the birds are trying to tell one another something with the sounds they make, we too need a vocabulary for what we’re hearing. Otherwise, it can be overwhelming, to say the least. The book helps us learn the words to describe sounds, and more.  Nathan Pieplow is an expert “earbirder” who has been intensively studying and recording birds since 2003. A South Dakota native, he lives in Boulder and teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado.He joined me on my public-radio show and podcast to help us understa

Read along as you listen to the August 19, 2019 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).And for those of you listening from near the Capital Region of New York State, Ken will join me at the New York State Writers Institute’s second annual Book Festival on Saturday, September 14th, 2019, and we’re going to have information about how you can join this wonderful, big, free day-long book festival and meet us.the latest q&a with ken druseMargaret Roach: New York State Writers Institute’s se

You know Joe Lamp’l as host of the “Growing A Greener World” show on PBS and of the Joe Gardener podcast, but apparently besides being a great gardener, he also had a show on the DIY Network for three years. So before all my vining crops and tomatoes need support, or the seedlings are screaming to be gridded out at proper spacing and other such impending issues, Joe shared some proactive garden organizing tips, DIY-style, based on the wire panels.Read along as you listen to the April 2, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).joe lamp’l’s diy garden projects using livestock panelsQ. Welcome back, Joe. I’m ready for some he

David Sibley is the author and illustrator of the series of nature guides bearing his name, and lives and birds in Massachusetts. We talked about how a bird is ingeniously built for flight (and no, I don’t mean just the obvious wings); why pigeons and chickens bob their heads when they walk; how birds seem to know a storm is coming and go into a feeding frenzy ahead of it, and many more insights.Plus: Enter for a chance to win a copy of the book in the comments box at the very bottom of the page.Read along as you listen to the May 25, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).‘what it’s like to be a bird,’ with david sibleyMargaret: Welcome, David. Thank you for coming indoors and making time to talk.David: Thank you. It’s great to be with you.Margaret: I was just curious, I suspe

If you want a quirky little plant indoors that stands out with its shiny veined leaves, then keep on reading to know all about Piper Ornatum Care Indoors!

Upcycling plastic reduces the amount of waste that gets to the landfills. Using this waste plastic into something creative, not only helps the environment to reduce it's waste, but also helps us to be more creative. With increase in urbanisation and deforestation the population of birds is at high risk. Through bird feeders we can provide birds a reliable source of a year-round supply of food and water.