New Resolutions

So here it is, a bright new year, and you've got your head full of resolutions about what you're going to do next year. Usually they run along the lines of a) lose 20 lbs b) get rid of gray hair c) become fabulously wealthy so you can sneer at Dennis Rodman and Howard Stern, d) buy a car that's named after someone's hormones, e) save the world, and f) finish that box of chocolates you got for Christmas. Six weeks into the bright new year you find that you have to put your plans for domination of Rude People on hold until after you maneuver Bill Gates and Ross Perot into giving you an allowance. And, of course, the hormone-car has to wait until you've gotten your first allowance from Bill and Ross (which should be about the time that there's an ice age and glaciers in Hades). All of your New Years' plans are a shambles (thanks to those ingrates, Bill and Ross), leaving you with only one thing to do out of your resolutions -- finish the chocolates. Fortunatly, that's do-able.

Wildscaping resolutions usually run along the same lines, you know. This year, you'll put in a small river and a pond where goldfish will splash merrily in the sunshine under the weeping willow and hordes of butterflies will flit to the banks of your tiny 8'x10' meadow. You'll build three bluebird houses and two bat houses. When reality sets in some six weeks hence, you'll settle for throwing some birdseed into the back yard once every three days. On alternate Wednesdays you'll practice an hour of guilt over not recycling of your household trash while chanting the time-honored Yuppie Mantra: "AAAAAAAAAAAGH!".

Ahh, New Year's resolutions.

But if you're into resolutions, here's one you can start on that will do the environment quite a bit of good and not cost you a lot of investment in time or energy: Project FeederWatch. It does cost $15 for US citizens ($20 for Canadians) -- about the same as a month's worth of feeder seed here in Texas (the birds around here eat like they're expecting a famine to hit in the next 30 seconds.)

Project FeederWatch (warning: pages not friendly to some old, OLD browsers) is one of those wonderful "Citizen scientist" projects; a public research project that anyone can get involved with. You don't need fancy gear, just a pencil and a bird feeding station that can be as simple or as elegant as you like. Furthermore, the information you

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