Holiday/Seasons

Madagascar hissing roaches (Photo: Liz West, Flickr Creative Commons)

The beloved—or hated, depending whom you ask—Valentine’s Day is just a week away. Still looking for that something special to give your Valentine? Maybe you’re trying to impress that darling you hope will be your love for good? Look no further than the Bronx Zoo, with its, um, unique gift any girl would treasure. Introducing roaches, two ways (one of them edible).

Try birding your holiday cards as you update addresses. (Mute swans could be one of your top sightings!)

Whether you fancy yourself a serious “lister,” a novice birder, an outdoor enthusiast, or a hard-core competitor, you may be interested in a challenge that is about to begin when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve.

It’s called “Bird-A-Day.” The objective: Count how many days in a row you can find a “new” bird. (New = recorded for the first time in this game.) The rule: You must never repeat a species, nor go a day without seeing a new one. If you do, you are out of the challenge.

El Dorado Audubon member Greg Gook was initated last year to the Christmas Bird Count. His experience inspired him to write this poem.

 May I assume, gentle reader, that you have at least a passing interest in birds? Or that you know someone who does? If you are in a quandary about what to give to the birders/naturalists in your life, fret no more. Here are my holiday gift suggestions for 2011.

If pecan pie’s on your menu for Thursday—for as long as I can remember, it’s been on my family’s Thanksgiving table—get ready to pay a pretty penny for the delectable dessert. The cost of a pound of pecans rose from $7 in 2008 to around $11 this year, according to the Associated Press, with drought in pecan-producing states like Texas and Louisiana making matters worse.

[Photo: National Pecan Shellers Association]

Test-tube turkey sounds like a science experiment gone terribly wrong, but it could be an ethical and environmental breakthrough.

Photo: Xuaxo, Wikimedia Commons

Thanksgiving’s this coming Thursday! If you need a quick break from prepping your menu, take a look at a few pieces we’ve done about the food that’ll likely end up on your plate…

Photo: NixBC, Flickr Creative Commons

There are a ton of pretty amazing Thanksgiving-related stats in general, like the fact that by the end of this year, the U.S. will have produced somewhere around 750 million pounds of cranberries (not all for the one November meal, of course) or that the average American consumed more than 13 pounds of turkey during 2009 alone. Kind of crazy.

But since we’re a magazine that loves to write about birds, click through for some fun numbers about turkeys—the wild kind.

This image from Apollo 17 captures the south polar ice cap, and almost the entire coastline of Africa, along with the Arabian Peninsula. Photo courtesy NASA

Today marks the 41st anniversary of Earth Day. Whether you're a gardener or a film buff, here are a variety of fun suggestions to celebrate the day in your own special way...