I have to write myself a note so next year I’ll remember: Planting seeds indoors is time-consuming, expensive and frustrating!!!!

Every year I tell myself I’m going to buy plants from the nursery, and instead, every year I get sucked into buying all these seeds from the catalog companies. Last year, the plants turned out great. But this year, an entire flat of tomatoes turned reddish, then sort of blackish, and then they died. Ditto marigolds, of all things, which have to be among the easiest things to grow on earth.

So two weeks ago, my husband and I went to a local garden center, got a wonderful variety of tomatoes for only $30 — very close to the amount we had spent on tomato seeds, if I recall correctly, seeing as how we couldn’t resist buying about six different kinds. 

Two hours later: instant garden! And they were big enough to withstand the heavy rains that followed, whereas even the best of my young seedlings would have gotten thumped.

That said, I still love the act of planting a seed and the miracle of watching it sprout. So I’ll stick to the squashes and beans and cucumbers and such, which you can plant right in the ground and which come up sturdy. And, I swear, NEXT YEAR, buy plants when it comes to the more delicate veggies.

Now if only we could keep up with the weeding. Why is that every time we don’t have plans for the weekend, it rains? And every time we do have plans, it’s good gardening weather?

On a happier note: The salad pots are cranking away like mad. We’re getting several salads a week. Ditto the chard. (Which I started indoors, by the way).

My husband is the chard maestro: He cooks it down with oil, onions and garlic. Adds a little nutmeg. Then ham or bacon. Then walnuts. And at the last moment, Parmesan. Yum!

P.S. We have eight new chicks, tiny things that hop about and peep like crazy, and a new worm bin. Stay tuned.
 

Well, I was wrong in my prediction that the Franklin Institute red-tailed hawks might take their first flights on Saturday.  Oh well, at least it gives us more time to watch the daily dramas in the nest! And more time for Kay Meng to add to her spectacular photo album.

I went by the Franklin yesterday at about 5 p.m. with my binoculars.  The birds looked tremendous. And FOUR other people were there with binocs, too. A popular spot.

If you're watching the cam, don't forget to check out the log of comments on the Ustream site.

Meanwhile, the tree swallows at the Natural Lands Trust's Hildacy Farm in Media have hatched! I've been watching, and I don't even think their eyes are clear. But those little mouths open for sure when food arrives! See the webcam here.

A reader has sent info about a wonderful site that lists scads of bird cams -- including an albatross cam from New Zealand (look for the action in January, not now). Scroll down about halfway and look to the left for the list of cam links.

Copyright 2009 Kay Meng

If the three red-tailed hawks in the nest atop a third-floor ledge of the Franklin Institute adhere to nature’s timetable, they should be taking their first flights soon.

I’m betting on Saturday. I’m betting it will be a brilliantly sunny morning, no hint of clouds or rain, excellent weather for a first flight. The hawks will come back to the nest after that – not like some birds that fly off and never return – so the thousands of people who have become so attached will still have some sights to see.

For those who haven’t been following, the site for the Franklin’s web “hawkcam” is http://www2.fi.edu/hawknest.php. But if you double click on the picture, it will take you here --   http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Franklin-Institute-Hawk-Nest -- where many, many people have been posting comments as they have watched the young ones hatch and grow.

Not long ago, Kay Meng, a Delaware County resident, posted a link to spectacular photos she took. They’re here: http://www.pbase.com/c_w_i_d_p/urban_redtail_hawk

Meng, the principal’s secretary at Little Flower High School, contends she’s no professional photographer. She started as a hobbyist when her kids were little. The family would go hiking and fishing, and pretty soon she found she enjoyed taking nature photos more than trying to get humans to agree to get in front of the lens.

“It’s just an amazing thing to watch,” she said of the whole hawk business. “There’s something powerful, when they spread those wings and take off, especially the parents. It’s like, wow! “

Wow, indeed. Her photos are just that.

The people posting on the ustream site are beside themselves with appreciation. Meng posted the photos as part of a project for a women’s photograph group. Up until Sunday, the folder of hawk photos had maybe 25 page views. Now, it’s more than 1,500.

Meanwhile, the young hawks will inevitably spend longer and longer amounts of time away from the nest.  For all those who got hooked on the drama and are experiencing withdrawal – or empty nest syndrome --   here’s a little something to help: The Natural Lands Trust has installed an infrared camera in a nest box at its Hildacy Farm headquarters in Media. The box was intended for bluebirds, but this year tree sparrows took up residence. A common occurrence, alas. But it should still be exciting. There are five eggs. Oliver Bass, Senior Director of Development and Communications, says they could hatch any day now.

You can view the cam live here: http://www.natlands.org/categories/article.asp?fldArticleId=134

On Wednesday, various groups are unveiling a 130-page birding and wildlife guide to eastern Pennsylvania. It's full of spectacular photos and useful information about great birding sites where there's interesting wildlife activity year-round -- places like the Quakertown Swamp and French Creek State Park and the Churchville Nature Center ... and lots, lots more.

The guide also includes an eloquent introduction by the incomparable natural history author, Scott Weidensaul. "Eastern Pennsylvania is a birding paradise," he writes. "From the gulls and waterfowl on lakes Nockamixon on Ontelaunee, to the songbird-haunted forests of the Pocono plateau and to the Kittatinny Ridge overlooks like Hawk Mountain and Bake Oven Know with their parade of migrant raptors -- there is always something with feathers to make a day outside worthwhile."

Not only that, but it's also a cradle of American bird study. Think John J. Audubon and William Bartram.

Among six press previews being held throughout the 13-county area covered in the book, are ones the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum on Philadelphia's southern border, the Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve just south of New Hope, the John J. Audubon Center at Mill Grove in Audubon.

After that, copies will be available free to the public, while supplies last.

Funded in part through a Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources grant, the guide was created through a partnership of the Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, the National Parks Service and Lehigh Gap Nature Center.

A list of sites offering the guide can be viewed on SHRA’s Web site at www.schuylkillriver.org., or D&L’s Web site at www.delawareandlehigh.org. Guides can also be ordered from those web sites for $10, to cover shipping and handling. 

The Philadelphia Water Department, with support from the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, has selected the winners of its annual “Protect Philadelphia’s Hidden Streams” student art contest.

More than 1,500 entries were received, and the winners will get quite a showing. The first-place drawings for each age category will be displayed on advertisements for one year inside SEPTA buses and trains. These along with eight other award-winning entries, will be published in a calendar available for free  at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center.

This year, the contest included a new video category, and the winning entries are being highlighted in the calendar in addition to being featured on Flickr, YouTube (keyword search “Delaware Estuary”) and the website of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary.

And the winners are:

Drawing Category:

9th - 12th Grade: 1st prize, Keith Palmer; 2nd, Dominique Mills; 3rd, Shanice Canty, all of the Maritime Academy Charter School (of Lower Northeast Philadelphia).

6th - 8th Grade: 1st prize, Patricia Conway; 2nd, Nikelous Heisler; 3rd, Nicholas Gambino, all of CCA Baldi Middle School (of Far Northeast Philadelphia).

3rd - 5th Grade: 1st prize, Billy Killen, Jr., Maritime Academy Charter School; 2nd, Simone Rogers, St. Francis de Sales Catholic School (of West Philadelphia); 3rd, Nigel Law, Germantown Friends School.

 Kindergarten - 2nd Grade: 1st prize, Christopher Mendez, John Moffet Elementary School (of Kensington); 2nd, Destiny Cruz, John Moffet Elementary School; 3rd, Steven Wang, Solis Cohen Elementary School (of Lower Northeast Philadelphia).

Video Category:

1st prize, Brandon Cummons, Kevin Jones and R.J. Spurgeon, Maritime Academy Charter School; 2nd, Maleek Armstrong and Jeff Konce, Maritime Academy Charter School; 3rd, Aedhan Loomis, home entry from Center City Philadelphia.
 

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson (right) gets a tour of the West Philadelphia car by students (from left) Jacques Wells; Lawrence Jones-Mahoney, former student and now a Drexel freshman; Eric Yates; Azeem Hill; and Anita Davidson. (CLEM MURRAY/Staff Photographer)

Lisa Jackson could only grin in amazement as she climbed into the driver’s seat of the best little car that West Philly — and maybe just about anybody, anywhere  — has ever made.

She was at the West Philadelphia High School Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, and the red sports car, the Hybrid K-1 Attack, has been proven to get 60 miles per gallon on biodiesel and has get-up that will make you go-go.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator, formerly head of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, was in town earlier today and made it a point to come to the school to congratulate the members of its Hybrid X team.

As if winning the eco-car competition, the Tour de Sol, not just once, not just twice, but THREE times wasn’t enough, the team of about a dozen high-schoolers is now at work on a new car for a new competition.

Even considering they’re competing against automakers and other innovative groups, they've been rated among the top ten teams to win the international Progressive Automotive X Prize — which just happens to come with a $10 million purse. And why not? Their previous car beat MIT; it beat Detroit. And more.

The new baby, made from a white Ford Focus, will get 100 mpg on biobutanol and an electric charge.

“Ideas like these will determine our country’s future,” Jackson told the students and an assortment of dignitaries, from Chaka Fattah to Lisa Nutter. Noting that the nation’s auto industry was “in a little trouble right now,” Jackson told the students, “you are the key to the ideas that will bring them into the future.”

She said they were clearly “ahead of the curve.  You know first-hand that we don’t have to choose between a healthy green environment and a healthy green economy.”

Part of the deal in developing new cars at West Philly is coming up with a business plan to match. The students have been working on a plan to build 10,000 of the new cars and sell them for less than $25,000 each.

“I’m so excited we finally have a visionary like her,” Simon Hauger, director of the team, said of Jackson. “As the green economy emerges, my hope and my prayer is that folks like her make sure there’s a place for my students.”

Jackson already is.  She said she hoped the students would would consider a careers at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., where clean automotive technology research is going on. “I challenge you to stay engaged,” Jackson said. “I’m looking forward to seeing where you’re going to take us.”

Several of the students took the podium to explain more about their amazing cars:

“The students dreamed big,” said Eric Yates, a senior.

"Sophomore Azeem Hill noted how their new-generation vehicle, in addition to its 100 mpg, will emit only 200 grams of carbon per miles and go from zero to 60 in under 12 seconds.

“I know we have what it takes to win,” said Jacques Wells, a junior. When the students first began using biodiesel and plug-in technology, few knew where they even were. But the students proved it could work.

Now, the West Philly Hybrid X Team is “ensuring a bright green future” for the city, said Anita Davidson, a senior.

“Just” high-schoolers? They were poised, articulate and knowledgeable.

Later, after Jackson stepped from the car, she shook her head and grinned some more. “These kids,” she said, “know what they’re totally about.”

(You can follow the students’ progress at www.evxteam.org)

The region is bird-crazy this weekend.

The centerpiece is New Jersey’s World Series of Birding, and Sheila Lego of New Jersey Audubon wrote about it so nicely that I’ll pretty much just cut and paste her description here:

In baseball the season is just starting and the pennant race is wide open. But in the world of competitive birding, it’s already come down to the biggest game of the series.

On May 9, 2009, millions of birds and hundreds of bird watchers will take the field to see who can spot the most species of birds between midnight and midnight.

The playing field is the entire state of New Jersey – one of the most bird rich places in North America. For twenty-six years, teams of birders from across North America and abroad have come here to test their skills.

“New Jersey is to birding what Augusta National is to golf,” says Pete Dunne, the founder of the event. One of the reasons the event was founded was to draw attention to New Jersey’s strategic, and overlooked, importance to birds.

We’ve got a wealth of natural areas. We’re positioned right on the migratory mainline. In one compact and highly birdable state, teams can go from Canadian zone forest to Carolina coastal habitat and not even stop for gas.
Winning totals for the event often top 230 species.

About 100 teams will be competing. Team supporters pledge money on the number of species found by their favorite team. The money — nearly $9 million since the competition began — is used to support the bird conservation efforts of each team’s sponsoring organizations.

“There are a lot of Golden-winged Warblers looking for nesting habitat and Red Knot searching for horseshoe crab eggs that owe a measure of thanks to this event,” says Dunne.

The event has grown since thirteen teams first took up New Jersey Audubon’s challenge in 1984. Now there are multiple divisions, including a popular youth division, a senior division, and several different categories.
By the way, this year Dunne is going it alone. Complications intervened for potential team members, but even that couldn’t keep him away.

Dunne’s first teammates included Roger Tory Peterson (who is credited with naming the event) and David Sibley, author of the “Sibley Guide to Birds.”

(By the way, you can follow the progress of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “Team Sapsucker” on Twitter or learn more by going to www.bigday09.org)

Teams can plan routes that cover the entire state; individual counties; even remain in a single, 17 foot circle and record birds without leaving that spot.

In 2007, a World Series team set a national record by recording 139 species from one fixed location.
This year a new “Carbon Footprint Cup” category has being inaugurated. All birding must be done using human powered means of transportation. Contestants can walk, run, bike, row... Anything that doesn’t require energy tied to fossil fuel.

The official website is www.worldseriesofbirding.org. 

       ***

In a similar event, the Delmarva Ornithological Society began its third annual Bird-A-Thon fundraiser last weekend, and it continues through Sunday. Individuals or teams count the number of different bird species seen or heard over any 24-hour period in backyards, fields, forests and wetlands throughout Delaware.

The society hopes to raise more than $45,000 to help purchase vital migratory bird habitat along the Delaware Bay, along with funding migratory raptor research and other similar conservation causes. The website for this group is www.dosbirds.org

       ***

Saturday is also International Migratory Bird Day, a project of Environment for the Americas, a non-profit group working to increase awareness of birds and their conservation throughout the Western Hemisphere.
In celebration of that, there’s going to be a bird festival that includes self-guided nature drives, children’s craft activities, decoy carving and educational displays at the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve in Tuckerton.

The Reserve, managed by Rutgers University, is at 130 Great Bay Blvd. The event is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is free, although an additional 8 a.m. bird walk at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge is available for $5.

       ***

Also in honor of the day, a group of professional raptor and wildlife biologists and conservationists will hold a press conference at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton to bring people up to date on their efforts to secure national designation for a Kittatinny-Shawangunk National Raptor Migration Corridor.

Known around the world for its autumn raptor migrations proposed area is a 250-mile-long stretch of the Kittatinny-Shawangunk Ridge and its adjacent corridor that crosses parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Neotropical migratory songbirds, bats, butterflies and various other fauna also use the ridge as a migratory route.
The Raptor Corridor Project website is www.raptorcorridor.org
 

Earlier this afternoon, New York’s Gov. David A. Patterson signed an executive order to phase out the purchase of bottled water for state agencies. The agencies have 180 days to develop and implement  plans to phase out expenditures for bottled water — both single-use bottles and the larger office jugs — and provide alternative water sources such as ordinary tap water fountains and dispensers.

The goal is to eliminate bottled water expenditures by May 1, 2010. New York is the second state — after Illinois — to stop purchasing bottled water.

“Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars to ensure that we have clean drinking water supplies,” the governor said in a prepared statement. “If we are going to make such significant investments, we should reap the benefits and use that water. Our efforts will serve as an example for local governments, businesses and residents to follow.”

According to a state press release, “over 450 million gallons of oil are used to transport water from bottling plants to stores. In the United States, plastic water bottle manufacturing uses 17 million barrels of oil, producing over 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution. Eighty percent of these bottles, which are equal to four billion pounds, end up in garbage incinerators or landfills.”

The move drew praise from the Think Outside the Bottle campaign, an initiative led by Corporate Accountability International.

“This action sends an important message that in these difficult economic times, state government can both cut waste and invest in shared public resources, like water, upon which local economies rely,” the group said in a press release. “Governor Paterson’s executive order is good for our pocketbooks, good for our environment, and good for our public water systems.”

Recently, Paterson also signed a bottle bill that included a five-cent deposit on bottled water sales, which is returned when the bottle is turned in for recycling.

New York City Council also is ending purchases of bottled water for city offices and city-sponsored events. Mayor Bloomberg cosponsored a resolution passed at last year’s U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting that encouraged cities to phase out taxpayer spending on bottled water, an action taken by at least 60 cities, according to the Think Outside the Bottle campaign.
 

Here's another reason -- besides energy conservation -- to seal all the air leaks in a home: Stink bugs.

They are a dull brown. Their wings make a buzzing sound when they fly. They have nasty little feet and it's MOST unpleasant to encounter them on, say, the bathroom drinking glass in the middle of the night. They are gross.

And, unfortunately, they had as banner weekend last weekend. In my house, anyway, they emerged by the dozens. 

An Asian species, the insects -- called brown marmorated stink bug, or Halyomorpha halys -- were first found in this country in Allentown in 1998.  By now, they're in 29 counties in Pennsylvania, including all of southeastern Pennsylvania. And in lots of Jersey, too. They're yet another example of the complications that come with global travel and our shrinking world.

Apparently, they don't actually hurt anything or anyone, although they could well become a pest species because they like apples. Maybe that's why I have so many. I have a big apple tree in my yard. And I have an older house that, I now suspect more than ever, has a few more leaks than I thought.

Since the warm weekend, literally hundreds of them must have emerged in my home. The question is what to do about them. Pesticides are out, as far as I'm concerned.  And I'm NOT squishing them with my bare hands, thanks. So I settled on two sheets of TP per insect. I prowled the curtains and windows, where they seem to congregate. But with that many bugs, you can imagine I used a lot of TP.  And it took a bit of time. My latest technique, which is both easier and, in a devilish way, quite satisfying, is to use the vacuum cleaner. They make a wonderful sharp "thunk" as they get sucked down the tube. 

Last night, I dispatched 80 to the inner recesses of the vacuum cleaner bag. Probably won't be as many tonight since the weather turned cool again. But when it re-warms, look out stink bugs!

Here's a Penn State site on the bugs, and here's a Rutgers site.