Local Ecologist

One of my favorite blogs is This Picture Book Life written by Danielle Davis. As you can guess from the blog's title, Danielle writes about picture books. She often includes a craft or recipe with each book review. Recently, Danielle created a  picture book advent calendar with a printable template . The calendar in this case is a cup of paper flags attached to candy canes; each flag is printed with the title of a seasonal picture book and a related activity (ex: Day 6: Read  The Great Paper Caper  by Oliver Jeffers and Fold a paper airplane). I was so taken with Danielle's advent calendar that I thought I'd create one for this blog. I've chosen picture books that are fairly popular. If you don't have a title in your home library, you can probably find it at your local library. Each title has a corresponding activity. Print the Nature Advent Calendar  and cut out each book + activity slip. Place all 24 slips in a container of your choice. Pick a slip each d

( Video source ) On Monday, November 23, NYC Parks hosted a tour of the Washington Arch in Washington Square Park on Periscope TV. Did you know that there are 102 steps and a "secret room" within the arch?! The view from the top of the arch is 360 degrees and stunning. Don't skip through the video. Also, here are several tweet highlights from the tour. Blue skies and fall foliage for the tour of #WashingtonArch . https://t.co/TEq5WpiLi5 — wspecoprojects (@wspecoprojects) November 23, 2015 Heading inside the #WashingtonArch ! https://t.co/TEq5WpiLi5 — wspecoprojects (@wspecoprojects) November 23, 2015 The inside of the #WashingtonArch is brick lined. https://t.co/TEq5WpiLi5 — wspecoprojects (@wspecoprojects) November 23, 2015 There is a surprisingly tall room at the top of the stairs in the #WashingtonArch . https://t.co/TEq5WpiLi5 — wspecoprojects (@wspecoprojects) November 23, 2015 I think the pigeons on the ledge of the #WashingtonArch have an enviable view o

I have been fortunate to have access to outdoor space for gardening in many of the places I have lived. The one place I have not had a place to garden outside is in New York. When we moved there I submitted an application for a plot in a local community garden. As far as I know, I am still in the waitlist. That was six years ago! I'm in Virginia this year. We live in a house that has a generous yard. In the back yard there are two raised beds. Sadly I have not planted anything in either of them though I harvested the last of the tomatoes left from the previous tenants. I had hoped to sow a winter ground cover and possibly plant spring bulbs before the first frost. There's still time. Yesterday there was a high of 70 degrees F in Arlington! If you don't have in-the-ground garden space, you can reliable garden in containers. Rooftop Roots has installed several varieties on the a container garden on the rear plaza of the Arlington Public Library Central Branch. Which

Coast Live Oak ( Quercus agrifolia ), Oakland City Hall Plaza ( This tree was planted in 1917 .) A few weeks ago I received an alumni fund letter from the College of Environmental Design (CED) at UC Berkeley. Included in the letter was a well-designed leaflet about the re-oaking Oakland project undertaken by ProfessorsWalter Hood and Ron Rael and their design students. I enjoyed reading about this community and academic effort and was happy that the school was sharing this work with its alumni. The story has gone beyond CED in the form of a New York Times article by Patricia Leigh Brown, who mostly writes features about California issues and landscapes. Read the Times article, Tree Project Aims to Put the Oak Back in Oakland . David Nowak 1993 research article in the Journal of Arboriculture ( source ) The coast live oak was one of the dominant tree species of Oakland's historic urban forest canopy. Many factors led to the species' population decline as well as th

Image: Screenshot of Walkabout Neighborhood Maps from www.walkarlington.com ( source ) Walking is a good way to get to know a place, don't you think? It's free, easy on your joints, and you can easily adjust your route. (There are exceptions to this latter point. A recent example is a walking tour of Tyson's Corner led by a UVA urban planning professor where sidewalks abruptly ended.) Walking is how I get accustomed to new neighborhoods I live in or to explore new (and old) places I visit. I am learning about Arlington, especially my neighborhood and the ones surrounding it by walking. (I also bike in Arlington , and drive too.) Image: Screenshot of Lyon Park Walkabout from wwwwalkarlington.com ( source ) Now I cannot remember how I learned about the Walkabouts brochures but I emailed the organization and was sent a hard copy. There's something about paper maps! There are 25 self-guided walkabout routes in the brochure. ( Arlington County has 58 neighborhoo

We are reprinting here the November 2015 e-newsletter of WSP Eco Projects. Image: screenshot of WSP Eco Projects's Instagram feed (instagram.com/wspecoprojects) WSP Eco Projects Celebrating the visible & hidden nature of Washington Square Park November 2015 Thanks to everyone who has used the Eco Map! We will continue to make improvements. You can share feedback with us via email at wspecoprojects@gmail.com or via social media @wspecoprojects. The Park has been in the news lately for the discovery of two 19th century burial vaults. These vaults were uncovered on University Place during excavation related to the City's water main connection project on the streets surrounding the park and on West 4th between the park and Broadway. The construction zone is now partly an archaeological dig and cultural artifact site. In light of the historic nature of the findings, we'd like to share some park history with you. Before Washington Square Park became a public pa

We spend a lot of time making art and crafting at home so when Skyhorse Publishing reached out me to try their new series of coloring books for grown-ups, I didn't hesitate to say yes. I even bought my own set of colored pencils. This was unnecessary. I had forgotten about Fiver's set of Prismacolor pencils. These pencils are smooth and soft which makes it easier to color larger sections of white space, but because they are soft, these pencils are not the most effective for detail work. The richness of the colors makes up for this shortcoming. I have ordered Sharpie fine point markers to use for image details. I selected Natural Wonders and Flying Wonders because the titles fit the content of this blog. There are many wonderful images to color. I've been working on a highly stylized ostrich feather in Natural Wonders and a songbird, which might be a chickadee, in Flying Wonders . Not all the patterns directly relate to the book titles. For example, tea cups

Growing up I did not have my own bicycle. My younger brother did and one of the few times I rode it, I fell and badly cut my leg. I still have a scar. I bought my first bike after college. I rode it in Los Angeles, New Haven, Boston, and in Berkeley. My bicycle was stolen in New Haven but discarded because the lock could not be broken and luckily recovered. It was a heavy bike and about half through my time in Berkeley, I needed something lighter. I sold my bike to a brother in law and bought a new one -- a Schwinn Trail Way. You will not believe it but someone stole my former bike again, and this time it was not recovered. I rode my new bicycle almost daily in Berkeley. The bike infrastructure in Berkeley is great. When we made the decision to move to New York City, I made the decision to leave my bicycle in Boston. I did not feel that I could safely bicycle in NY and definitely not with a child in tow. Sorry, NYC. We are in Arlington, VA this year, and so is my bicycle! I lik