Protecting Pollinators

Finished July 28
Protecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures That Feed Our World by Jodi Helmer

This book is full of information on the importance of pollinators and how we can act to help them survive. Pollinators are responsible for one-third of the crops that feed us, but half of their 200,000 species are threatened, some quite significantly. The percentage of pollinator-dependent food crops has increased 300 percent in the last 50 years, but despite this reliance, the pollinators themselves are more endangered than ever. This book is mostly focused on the United States, but as pollinators don't recognize borders, discussion sometimes goes beyond.
This book is organized into seven chapters. Within each chapter there are side columns that go deeper into certain aspects of the subject. Chapter One, Bees and Beyond tells us about the wide range of pollinators that exist, beyond just the ones that easily come to mind like bees and butterflys. Helmer gives information on the state of research into different pollinators and the public awareness of them. Side columns here are Plant Sex, The Rusty-Patched Bumblebee Made History, Raise Your Glass to Pollinating Bats (main pollinators of agave, from whence tequila), Are High-Tech Drones the Next-Generation Pollinators?, A Presidential Plea to Protect Pollinators (Obama administration), and Pollinators in Peril.
Chapter Two, No Place Like Home, talks about pollinator habitat and feeding needs. Here Helmer discusses the ways that habitat, even in small plots, can be added back to both urban and rural areas. Side columns here are Habitat Affects Honey Flavor (I love my buckwheat honey!), Pollinator Strips Might Not Work, A Cotton-Pickin' Boost for Pollinators, Could the Farm Bill Help Pollinators?, and Fireflies Are Burning Out.
Chapter Three, Taming Toxins brings into discussion the various chemicals, like pesticides and non-native flora and fauna, that have affected pollinators. Some are outright lethal, others are sublethal in that they affect the pollinator physiology and behaviour and make them less able to do their work. Side columns here are The Pests Decimating Honeybee Colonies, Harmful Herbicides, Neonics Not Welcome, White-Nose Syndrome and Pesticides, and Could Crop Insurance Promote Pesticide Use?
Chapter Four, The Need for Native Plants, looks at how the introduction of plants from other parts of the world have driven out some native plants the pollinators rely upon, or due to their different flowering cycle, changed their migratory habits. Side columns here are Venus Flytraps Control Their Appetites for Survival, Identifying Invasive Species, Ten Pollinator-Friendly Native Plants, Doggy Detective Keeps Bees Safe, Replacing Honeybees with Native Pollinators, Adopt a Trail, Eat the Invaders (some tasty invasive species can be eaten into extinction), and Caprine Cleaning Crew.
Chapter Five, Lessons from a Warming Planet discusses how climate change is affecting pollinators. In some cases the plants that pollinators rely on and the pollinators are in sync as the climate grows warmer, but in other cases they are not, which can mean the pollinator appears in the spring before or after their food source has, leading to population decline or possible extinction. Side columns here are Bats Help Save the Rainforest, Developing Mite-Resistant Bees, Climate Change Could Be Poisoning Monarchs, and Climate Change Helps Invasive Species Thrive.
Chapter Six, Helping Without Hurting, discusses how some things people are doing that they think are helping are not, and what they could do that is similar but different that would be a real help to the pollinators. Side columns here are Retailers Help Keep Gardens Neonic-Free, The Unexpected Consequence of Your Favorite Drink (more than you knew about almond milk), A Desire to Help the Bees Drives Honey Demand, Beekeepers Feel the Sting of Stolen Hives, Are Bee Hotels Bad for Bees?, and Don't Forget About Trees.
Chapter Seven, Stand Up and Be Counted discusses the huge impact that citizen scientists can have on data collection, observation, and positive change. Side columns are Putting Milkweed on the Map, Ten Principles of Citizen Science, Pollinators Seek Out Urban Addresses, Three Ways the Public Participates in Citizen Science, Citizen Scientists Honor the Stars, and the important Twenty-Nine Ways You Can Help Protect Pollinators.
There is also an extensive bibliography for those who want to learn more.
This is a great resource to learn about this important and critical subject.

Four Fields

Finished December 31
Four Fields by Tim Dee

This book has the author look at four vastly different fields, noting their features, the creatures that inhabit them, and their history.
The first field, and one he returns to in different seasons later in the book is his home field, the fens near Cambridge. Dee lives very close, and often ventures into the fields, birdwatching, walking or bicycling, and noting the changes that have taken place since his last visit.
His second field is a field in Zambia, near the country his wife comes from, and where he went with a local man to follow honeyguides to wild bees.
His third field is one in Montana, where George Custer lost his life, a field rich in history, and in life. The last field is the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl where he goes with researchers who annually take samples of local wildlife for testing. His job is to collect grasshoppers at each stop. This means that he pays attention to the noise of the life around him, to the activity on the ground, to the birds overhead.
This is a book of nature, of birds, of life going on, and life dying, and of history and the changes wrought over time, by both nature and man. A fascinating read.

The Ghost Orchard

Finished December 15
The Ghost Orchard: The Hidden History of the Apple in North America by Helen Humphreys

This book begins with the author discovering a single apple tree near an abandoned cabin. The apple she eats is delicious and she manages to identify it as a White Winter Pearmain. This leads her to research the history of apple orchards on our continent. The book has five chapters. The first is titled the Indian Orchard, and Humphreys shows how native settlements often had orchards as an integral part of their settled communities. She finds traces of these through place names, histories, and folklore. The second chapter titled Ann Jessop looks at an historical figure in the United States and her work to bring apple varieties from Europe to North America. Humphreys traces the apples she grew, and the places they were grown.
The third chapter looks at the enormous project of the USDA Watercolour Artists as they were hired to record, through detailed painting the apples found across the continent. The book also contains colour plates of these paintings. Humphreys looks at several of the artists who did this work, and gives a picture of the breadth of the project and the type of people working on it.
The fourth chapter looks at Robert Frost and his ties throughout his life to apples and the orchards they grow in. From owning several orchards, both commercial and personal, to friendships formed around these landscapes, and the poems that he wrote that referenced them, Humphreys shows how the apple orchard was a key element of Frost's life.
The last chapter is The Ghost Orchard, where Humphreys looks for traces of historical orchards that no longer exist, detailing her search for several of them.
The book also includes a fictional, imagined discovery of the apple that started this book, and a glossary of all the apples that once existed in North America, but are no lost to us.
A fascinating read.