Best Gifts of 2014 for Nature Lovers

Ever since inventor George Shiras rigged a clunky camera with a baited tripwire in the early 1900s, wildlife scientists and field researchers have used camera traps equipped with infrared triggers to capture the nighttime meanderings of leopards, tigers and other endangered species. Earlier this year, a team of researchers and Pakistani volunteers managed to capture on film the notoriously elusive snow leopard. Now that the market is stocked with affordable models, give all the wildlife-loving friends on your list a backyard camera trap so they can keep track of garden intruders including deer, raccoons, fox and alley cats. Or take the cameras on vacation to snap playful portraits of gray fox, beavers, bobcats or coyote near streams, ponds or lakes. Who knows, a great camera-trap shot might just prove to be a prizewinner in Smithsonian.com’s annual photo contest. 

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman

Award every enviro-maniac on your list with this gem—a tiny oxygenation plant to wear around your neck. Photosynthesis, explains Smithsonian.com reporter Henry Fountain, is “nature’s way of making use of all that light source that comes from the sun.” Plants produce the sweet oxygen that enriches our atmosphere. They have been using light in this primal way, Fountain says, for a large chunk of Earth’s existence. Humans can’t photosynthesize, but we do breathe the oxygen that plants produce, and plants in turn thrive on the CO2 end product of human respiration. Celebrate that symbiotic relationship with a necklace garden. Tiny trowel and mini watering cans (presumably) sold separately. 

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman

In 1996, biologists and the coffee industry came together to discuss how the decline of a traditional method for growing coffee in Latin American forests was proving detrimental to migratory birds that wintered in the tree canopy. The trend toward sun plantations for growing coffee was rapidly taking hold, and forests were being removed. In Colombia alone some 68 percent of the coffee farms had abandoned the shade tradition. The Smithsonian’s Russ Greenberg recognized that a ready market of 61 million bird watchers in the United States would also likely be coffee drinkers. In 1997, the first Smithsonian bird-friendly coffee became available. Today Smithsonian researchers are helping coffee growers to sustainably manage their farms—including the types and height of native trees, proper pruning and composting. Bird friendly coffee supports some 1,200 farmers, who supply 7.7 million pounds of coffee annually to 35 worldwide coffee roasters. More than 14,800 acres of habitat is currently protected. Look for the registered “Bird Friendly” certification stamp from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman

“I love the Wilcox pointed trowel,” says Smithsonian gardener Cindy Brown. “The point allows for precision when you’re digging in and around shallow rooted plants like sedums and sempervivums. It’s great for stabbing the soil and dropping in bulbs. And the red handle makes it easy to find in the compost pile.” Says gardener Shelley Gaskins: "My favorite gift is a Hori Hori knife, or Japanese gardening knife, for weeding as well as planting, and it comes in handy for opening up heavy-duty plastic bags of soil and mulch." Other Smithsonian gardeners swear by their Felco pruners and suggest lightweight plastic tubtrugs for cleanup; telescoping pruners for lightweight, long-reach lopping of trees and shrubs; and knee pads. But the king of all garden gifts this year, says the staff, is the rain barrel with a diverter system for collecting runoff water from roofs and gutters. For the armchair gardener, the whole Hort Team is pleased with its new book the Smithsonian Encyclopedia of Garden Plants For Every Location from DK Publishing.

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman

Bigger is better, but that’s not usually the case for nature lovers trying to train their eye on a fast-moving cedar waxwing. “Buy the best pair of binoculars you can afford,” says Smithsonian ornithologist Gary Graves, who has been using a pair of high-end Zeiss binoculars for three decades. Beginning birders might prefer a wider field of view to make it easier to find the birds up in the forest canopy. Just as a reminder, when picking out optics, the numbers work like this: For 7x35 or 10x40, the first number is the power of magnification—the object is seven or ten times closer. The second number indicates the light or brightness of the lens. So if you want to see something like a hawk or an eagle from a distance, you’ll want to buy a higher magnification, and if you want to see things in low-level lighting, you’ll want a greater degree of brightness. But more powerful binoculars are difficult to keep steady. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology reviews the king of birding binoculars, the Zeiss Victory SF 8 x 42, with a whopping price of $2,889. If that’s too rich for your blood, check out the Zeiss 524205 and Celestron 71372.

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman

America’s poet laureate, Walt Whitman worked for the Man. He was by turns a lowly government clerk, a typesetter and a newspaperman. If he were alive today, you could just imagine him in the next cubicle over surfing the web and pronouncing himself  “one of the roughs. . . disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them.” Whitman, says Smithsonian historian David C. Ward, “took poetry out of the drawing room and put it in the streets.” You might want to complement this gift with a copy of Whitman’s 1855 masterpiece Leaves of Grass.

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman