Author: Lisa

Private Land Conservation Grows in Illinois, Locally

Written on March 13, 2013.

Illinois conservation land trusts have helped preserve more than 200,000 acres of open land in Illinois over the last 50 years. The conservation land trust movement is gaining momentum and is supported by private...

Geese love the suburbs!

Written on March 5, 2013.

I heard them before I saw them, hundreds of Canada geese. A raucous honking as the birds circled a pond, vying for a spot to spend the night. The sun was near the horizon, and as I drove home, I noticed ribbons of the...

The Nature of Natural Selection

Written on February 20, 2013.

In my last post – the one with the poem about cardinals – I revealed that while cardinals mate for life, they are not necessarily faithful to their mates. Studies have shown that 9-35% of cardinal hatchlings are not...

A Valentine’s Day poem

Written on February 10, 2013.

When most people think of Valentine’s Day, they think of hearts and flowers, boxes of chocolate, valentine’s day cards, Cupid and his arrow — all that stuff. Some years ago I heard a different...

Where, oh where have the hedgerows gone?

Written on February 3, 2013.

The last year or two, I’ve noticed changes to the farm fields I pass on my commute between Harvard and Woodstock each day. The hedgerows are thinning and in some cases, disappearing altogether. As used here, the term...

Nature and the Economy

Written on January 28, 2013.

I heard an amazing speaker at MCC recently, Jon Erickson, Dean of the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of the Environment and Natural Resources. Erickson is an economist, which would normally have kept me away...