- I manage my small garden ecologically with my scythe
- Did some illustrations for fundraising of conservation ngo’s
- I do some monitoring of plants and animals in local nature reserves
- Eat vegan/veggie and use public transport when possible
I now have breeding pairs of pumas and ocelots. Those are probably the most exciting but there are also three troops of white-faced capuchins, one troop of howler monkeys, margays, jaguarundis, peccaries, grison, tayras and others. Last year I photographed 17 different species of mammals and birds in one month on my trail cameras.
Every summer for the past ten years I have volunteered at a wildlife rehab center, the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) caring for baby birds.
Last year the center cared for, rehabilitated, and released more than 500 baby birds. (They cared for more than 1250 birds overall, but I’m only involved with the babies). Not only is this a worthwhile endeavor, but nothing gives me greater joy than holding or being perched upon by warblers and wrens, sparrows and sapsuckers, finches and flickers…
In addition to wildlife rehab, VINS is an education, conservation, and research organization: https://vinsweb.org/about/
It’s small, but I am converting our small inner city plot of land we live on in to a mostly native pollinator garden.
While I am doing that, I made a project to document and house all the insect ID’s from my garden to get a picture of the tiny life in urban central Ohio.
I’m not a scientist, but who knows, something could be done with this data someday.
Here’s a few things I’ve done recently
- Planted some native grasses in my garden
- Volunteered to cut down white mulberry (Morus alba) in a prairie reconstruction in an underserved part of the city (since they haven’t gotten permission to burn it (yet, hopefully!))
- From that workday I accidentally took home a tiny wasp (about perhaps 3mm long) and, while I don’t know how good its chances are, I caught it and let it outside
- I also found a jumping spider in the car, caught it with my bare hands (first time holding a spider without gloves!) and let it back outside
- I rescued Hypericum majus and Hypericum punctatum (two native St John’s Worts) from our lawn
- I helped a painted turtle cross a parking lot that was maybe a minute from getting run over by a pickup
Thanks for this prompt to help me recognize that I am doing good things :)
Wow! Would love to visit your reserve one day and look for reptiles and amphibians.
I’ve learned that the only way to kill a mulberry is to dig up it’s roots. They can just keep growing back no matter how much you cut them, and the root system will only get bigger.
Asian mulberry + nuke = stronger Asian mulberry.
Short version, saved a butterfly from getting eaten by the dog
Out walking the dog on break, and there was a butterfly resting on the geound. Of course, she tried to eat it. I opened her jaws and it flew out, landing on one of my tree cages nearby. I tried to get a pic, but the dog tried to eat it AGAIN and it flew away.
I think it was one of these.
I remember being very confused the first time I saw insect tracks. The tracks were in very fine, dry sand. I spent a bit of time wondering what kind of bird could possibly have feet that small. Then I saw a rather large velvet ant traipsing across the path, leaving tracks.
Picked up some trash outside my office.
Planning to grow some pollinator-friendly plants if/when I ever have some space to grow things again :)