If you’ve been following Nature’s Archive for a while, you might be familiar with the idea of “leave the leaves”. It represents one simple act of omission - not raking, blowing, or mulching leaf fall - that is resoundingly positive for the environment.

But even if you think you know why leaving the leaves is helpful, I invite you to listen to today’s guest, National Wildlife Federation naturalist David Mizejewski.

If you are unfamiliar with David - let me just tell you his skill and enthusiasm for nature interpretation is second to none.

Today, David walks us through all the ways leaves help the environment - and how bagging them up and sending them to a landfill makes a bad situation much worse.

We also discuss useful tips for keeping leaves even if you have an HOA or difficult neighbors who might think you are neglecting your space.

So if you still have leaves in your yard, please listen and take NWF’s pledge to leave the leaves, and reap the rewards for years to come.

Be sure to follow David on instagram, and get David's Book "Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife".

FULL SHOW NOTES

People and Organizations

NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat

NWF’s Pledge to Leave the Leaves

Books and Other Things

Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife - by David Mizejewski

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

As a nature lover, I’m often asked about my favorite plants, animals, and insects. And I always struggle to answer those questions, because I have so many favorites, and they are context dependent. But when it comes to birds, woodpeckers often come to mind first.

They’re often colorful, charismatic, and have such an amazing set of adaptations that let them drill into trees, excavate insects from bark, and some even fly catch on the wing.

One of the most interesting woodpecker species is the Acorn Woodpecker, found in much of the west and southwest. They live in large groups, are loud, have a clown face, and can store thousands of acorns in specially drilled holes that are just acorn sizes.

Today’s guest is Dr. Walt Koenig, who has spent several decades studying these birds, in affiliation with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and UC Berkeley. Today we’ll learn about their behaviors, why you don’t find acorn woodpeckers in the east, despite a nice variety of oak trees, and get this - acorns aren’t even their preferred food!

Dr. Koenig has studied their breeding behaviors and group compositions, which is perhaps the most fascinating part of the interview, and I can’t do it justice in a short intro - so you’ll just have to listen.

And if one studies acorn woodpeckers, it follows that one studies acorns, too. So we also discuss the phenomenon of masting - that is, when oak trees produce bumper crops of acorns, in synchrony across wide geographic ranges! In fact, this past year was a mast year for some oak species in California. So if you are interested in what causes masting, you might want to jump to the last 23 minutes or so of the interview.

This re-release of our popular interview with Dr. Koenig is part of a playful exercise in community podcasting, with 6 different shows each producing their own stories about or inspired by the mystery of masting, and releasing them at (approximately) the same time.

For other masting stories, check out:

• Future Ecologies
• Golden State Naturalist
• Learning from Nature: The Biomimicry Podcast
• Jumpstart Nature
• Outside/In

We’ll populate this Spotify playlist with all our stories as they come out!

FULL SHOW NOTES

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Nearly every great story involves a transformation. In the butterfly world, we call it metamorphosis—the mysterious process where a caterpillar seemingly dissolves itself and is miraculously rebuilt into a creature that takes to the sky.

Our guest today is a living parallel to that transformation.

Liam O'Brien started his career far from the wild, under the bright lights of the stage as a professional actor. Yet, a shift was coming. At a pivotal time in his life, he traded the scripts and the spotlight for the quiet, meticulous study of winged beauty, stepping into the world of lepidoptery.

This pivot wasn't just a career change; it was a profound reawakening. In the precision and fragile beauty of the Bay Area's butterflies, Liam not only found a new scientific passion but he also re-discovered his dormant talent for art. He began documenting his observations with exquisite, original drawings, blending science and creativity in a way only he could.

The final form of this incredible journey is his beautifully illustrated Butterflies of the Bay Area - and slightly beyond.

Today, Liam discusses what makes butterflies so amazing. We discuss how no matter where you live, there are discoveries to be made. And this interview is so much more than just butterflies. You’ll have to listen to hear the raw, jaw dropping story of what led Liam to this life change.

And as you’d expect from a stage actor, Liam is full of charismatic and entertaining stories. And while we get into the details of some specific butterflies and places of the Bay Area, rest assured - there are parallels no matter where you live.

You can find Liam at robber_fly on instagram, and check out the show notes for links to Heyday Press and his book.

And thanks to Amelia Heintz-Botz for editing help with this episode!

FULL SHOW NOTES

Butterflies of the Bay Area and (Slightly) Beyond - Liam's beautiful new book

ADDITIONAL LINKS

Liam's public appearances

The Lepidopterists’ Society

Books

Dangerous World of Butterflies by Peter Laufer

Kaufman Field Guide To Butterflies Of North America

Related Podcast Episode

#46: Paul Johnson - Finding and Counting Butterflies

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

It was a surprisingly warm late February day. Needing to recharge, I drove to a park near Lincoln, Nebraska. When I arrived, I saw something new on the far side of the reservoir: what looked like massive white and gray boulders, lined up along the length of the dam.

Then, in one astonishing moment, all of these boulders lifted out of the water, taking flight simultaneously by the thousands. My mind couldn't make sense of what I was seeing, and then the sound hit me. It was thousands of snow geese, a deafening cacophony of honking and wing flapping that washed over me, cleansing my stress and reinvigorating my spirit.

Fast forward 20 years to today. Anytime I see snow geese take flight, I instinctively replay this experience, renewing me yet again.

And I have so many of these lived experiences. It’s the magic of sound.

Today's guest, Amy Martin, is the creator of the incredible Threshold podcast. The current season, Hark!, is an immersive experience all about listening to the natural world. As the podcast website says, "In this season of Threshold, we investigate what it means to listen to the nonhuman voices on our planet—and the cost if we don't."

Today, we'll dive into some of the highlights of the Hark season - ranging from dolphins to tree hopper insects. And we’ll explore how listening is a deeply personal and distinct experience for everyone.

I’m incredibly excited to share this episode with you today.

You can find the Peabody award winning Threshold podcast on any podcasting app or at thresholdpodcast.org. You can also follow @thresholdpodcast on instagram, Facebook, YouTube - and Amy on her Substack called Letters to Earthlings.

FULL SHOW NOTES (with pictures!)

Links

Find Threshold Podcast at thresholdpodcast.org and follow @thresholdpodcast on instagram

Letters to Earthlings - Amy's Substack newsletter

Evelyn Glennie

Rex Cocroft - the Treehopper acoustics researcher

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Today's episode is one of the more encouraging and hopeful conversations I've had the pleasure of recording. My guest is Sam Baker, co-founder of WriggleBrew, a company on a mission to combat one of the most insidious environmental issues we face today: toxic algal blooms.

These blooms occur globally, devastating everything from our local inland lakes to the vast expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, and even here in the San Francisco Bay, right in my own backyard. They create vast "dead zones" that choke out life, and their leading cause is something you might not expect: synthetic fertilizers.

In this episode, Sam and I get into the details of why synthetic fertilizers leave a trail of destruction, and why they've become so deeply ingrained in large-scale farming. We'll explore how Wriggle Brew has developed a game-changing solution by figuring out how to scale up worm casting production into a stable liquid form—a critical breakthrough for sustainable agriculture.

And we don't stop there. Did you know that some insect larvae can break down plastics? Sam shares how he and his team are working to replicate that process in bioreactors. It's an inspiring look at how nature and innovation can come together to solve some of our biggest problems.

This is a truly fascinating and hopeful discussion, and I can't wait for you to hear it.

You can find WriggleBrew and learn more about their work at wrigglebrew.com, and at wrigglebrew on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

FULL SHOW NOTES (with photos!)

Related Episodes

Gabe Brown: https://naturesarchive.com/2023/06/19/regenerative/

Elaine Ingham: https://naturesarchive.com/2022/02/07/soil/

LINKS

WriggleBrew.com

The Soil Triangle (texture)

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

From the intricate dance of an ecosystem to the ripple effects of a warming planet, nature's stories are rarely simple. But in a world that craves quick, easy answers, how do we get people to lean in and listen to the full story? And how do we do that without glossing over the complexity and nuance of the situation?

Today, we're getting a masterclass in just that with Jocelyn Bosley, a science communicator and Research Impact Coordinator at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She'll walk us through how to move beyond simple explanations and get people excited about the deeper stories in the natural world.

We’ll dig into specific examples, like how a warming Indian Ocean can affect asthma rates in the Caribbean, and we'll even challenge the idea that scientists must be objective and emotionless. This is an episode for anyone who wants to share their passion for nature and science—with anyone.

FULL SHOW NOTES

LINKS

Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, by Daniel Tammet

Consilience, by E.O. Wilson

Consilience Journal - science poetry

Entangled: a collaboration across time and space - Jocelyn's poetry appears in this book

Funsize Physics

Galactic Polymath SciJourneys

Rose Bear Don’t Walk, Ethnobotanist

Strange Days on Planet Earth - Learn more about the Indian Ocean story, or watch on YouTube

Support Us On Patreon!
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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

Have you ever found it tough to talk about big issues, especially when people already have strong ideas? In the world of nature and climate, we often see communication that feels more like telling people what to do, or how to think. It's easy for us all to dig in our heels, even if we're wrong, and shut down new ideas. Today, we're exploring a different path.

--

Griff: I was very radical and had really bad ecological depression because was from the Bay Area and watched all my favorite places get destroyed.

So I was, you know, really felt like the only thing left to do was to fight. And that's where I was at at 18, 19, 20. Pretty much all the way until 23, I was in a very radical mind state. Mostly angry and depressed.

--

That's Griff Griffith, someone many of you know as a passionate environmental communicator and a key collaborator with Jumpstart Nature. Like many, Griff once felt that fighting and lecturing were the only ways to defend the places he loved. But a surprising encounter on a work site with a farmer named Pops changed everything. Griff realized that truly saving biodiversity needed a different approach.

Today, Griff shares his remarkable personal transformation, revealing the power of nuance in communication and how embracing a different approach can yield incredible results for nature. It's a candid and thought-provoking conversation we can all learn from. We also dive into how even dandelions can have a surprising place in conservation—another vivid example of how our perspectives can evolve.

Because this conversation embodies the spirit of both our shows, I'm excited to release it on both the Nature's Archive and Jumpstart Nature feeds! If you're listening on Nature's Archive, know that Jumpstart Nature usually takes you on an immersive journey into thought-provoking topics that help you save biodiversity.

And if you're on the Jumpstart Nature feed, Nature's Archive brings you deep-dive interviews with top minds in ecology, biodiversity, and nature more broadly. Get ready, because this summer we're gearing up for many new episodes across both feeds! Our new team of volunteers is hard at work, and we already have several amazing interviews recorded that I can't wait to share with you.

For now, let’s lean in for Griff's truly inspirational story of personal transformation.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Bringing Nature Home – by Doug Tallamy

Homegrown National Park

Nature’s Best Hope – by Doug Tallamy, Dr. Tallamy’s 2020 release

Support Us On Patreon!
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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!

The Joshua Tree is perhaps only rivaled by the saguaro cactus as the icon of the desert southwest. Featured on U2’s classic album cover, and now the backdrop of countless instagram glamor shots, its unique, almost alien look is unmistakable.

But for decades the Joshua Tree was looked at with disdain - even loathing and hatred.

Today, our guest is Barret Baumgart, author of the new book, “Yuck: The Birth & Death of the Weird & Wondrous Joshua Tree”. Barret explores the history of the Joshua Tree, in a book that can be considered part history, part natural history, part cultural criticism, and part ecology.

Today, we delve into the strange and winding tail of the Joshua Tree and its history of evading human preconceptions and assumptions.

Living on the edge, it faces a potentially bleak future, but perhaps it will thwart us once again, against all odds.

Be sure to check out Barret on instagram, and on his Substack called Dumpster Fires.

FULL SHOW NOTES

LINKS

Barret's Website, including speaking engagements

Buy YUCK - The Birth & Death of the Weird & Wondrous Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia from bookshop.org

Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!

Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.

Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!