Years of being a Master Gardener has given Michele McMurray lots of ideas for practicing conservation in her own backyard.

Michele plants native plants, composts, and has a rain barrel. That is just the start to her conservation practices. Michele also has bird feeders, a bird bath and houses, and a squirrel feeder. Michele told me that when they bought the house it didn’t really have a lot of flowers. Now something is in bloom all the time which makes it great for pollinators.

Michele’s husband helped her mulch her beds this year which helps on saving water. Finally, Michele has also participated in several citizen projects including the Great Sunflower Project and Project Feeder Watch.

Citizen science enlists members of the public to make and record useful observations, such as counting birds in their backyards, watching for the first budding leaf in spring, or measuring local snowfall. The large numbers of volunteers who participate in projects such as Project FeederWatch or Project BudBurst collect valuable research data, which, when pooled together, create an enormous body of scientific data on a vast geographic scale according to Citizen Science, Public Participation in Environmental Research by Janis Dickinson and Rick Bonney.

For three years the Fayette Soil & Water Conservation District and local residents have participated in the Christmas Bird Count. This Citizen Science project has been going on for 114 years. If you are interested, join us for a day in December to count birds for three hours. Be inspired. Get involved today in a Citizen Science project.

Call for a conservation audit and share what you do. We can give you ideas for conservation practices. Contact Brigitte Hisey, Natural Resource Specialist, Fayette SWCD at 740-636-0279. Check us out on Facebook.