FROM THE SWEET SONGS OF BIRDS to the scary business of GMO crops and our imperiled food supply, the latest links I’ve been stockpiling are all right here.

NO, THEY AREN’T SINGING HYMNS, or at least not the ones I grew up on, but the songs of all 750ish North American bird species, along with their profiles and vivid images, have been gathered into one oversized “bible” replete with built-in audio player.

I first heard about “Bird Songs Bible: The Complete, Illustrated Reference for North American Birds,” edited by Les Beletsky, featuring sound from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and published by Chronicle Books, in this NPR segment last month. One caveat: The book-cum-boombox (birdbox?) ain’t cheap (cheep?) at $125.

‘Millions Against Monsanto’ Campaign

IWON’T ELABORATE OR START SHOUTING, but rather leave it at this: One of the things that scares me most is GMO crops, whether in the field or in our food. The Organic Consumers Union offers education, and also an advocacy program (aimed squarely at Monsanto, of course, whom they label “the biotech bully”) to make it easy for us all to add our names to the fight.

DON’T MISS THE NON-GMO SHOPPING GUIDE at this link, speaking of getting educated.


ON A RELATED TOPIC, IS THERE ANY REAL FOOD in the supermarket? Blogger Darya Pino of Summer Tomato [dot] com created this flowchart (above) on how to find it in all those confusing aisles. Read her whole post.

THANKS TO MICHAEL POLLAN, author and evangelist, for the tipoff to Darya. His website offers a daily link you can subscribe to for those who want to stay alerted to related subjects Pollan finds in the many studies, news articles, and more that cross his desktop.

IF YOU BELONG TO A Way to Garden’s Facebook page, you’ll get these as I find them—often a week or two before I round a few favorites up here on the blog.  Won’t you join us there? Come give it a Like, no?