“Thor Hanson’s new book, CLOSE TO HOME: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door, is just the ticket for these uncertain times. Feeling that things are out of control? Pick up this book and gain a new perspective about your own backyard and the differences you can make.
While most rave book reviews say ‘I couldn’t put the book down’, Close to Home will have you excited to drop the book and run out to explore your yard.
One of the fun facts is that frogs can’t see red light. So if you want to explore the creatures creating the symphony of sound at night, use a red light.
Hanson includes relatively simple ways you can make a big difference. For instance regarding light.
From the book:
“Illumination decreases the ability to produce melatonin, the hormone of the darkness,” Sibylle Schroer explained to me in a lengthy email.
While that might sound familiar to anyone who takes a melatonin supplement to fall asleep at night, it has much broader implications in nature. Melatonin deficiencies affect other organisms too, upsetting rest and activity patterns, increasing stress levels, suppressing immune responses, and leading to a higher risk for certain cancers. But the impacts of illumination don’t stop there. As a light-pollution specialist at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, Schroer has studied everything from diatoms to caterpillars.
She can quickly rattle off a surprising breadth and range of biological impacts, from lower growth rates in fish to reduced parental care in songbirds to the presence of damaging free radicals in the leaves of trees. With human-driven illumination expected to double in extent and intensity in little more than thirty years, and researchers documenting negative effects on seemingly every organism anyone has to study, some biologists have called artificial light an under-appreciated threat to biodiversity on par with habitat loss or climate change. But unlike those other hazards, so vast they often feel hard to address personally, artificial lighting has a solution that anyone can partake in.
“Light pollution is an environmental pollution which can be stopped completely when turning off the lights,” Schroer observed.
It’s that simple, an opportunity presented to us every time we leave an empty room, or close down our offices, homes, and businesses for the night. Similar logic applies to choosing lamps and fixtures, or deciding how to light up a yard, porch, patio, or driveway.
As Schroer put it, all those choices should be governed by one overarching question: Do I need the light? When the answer is yes, she recommends dimmable bulbs and shades that cast the light downward only where it is needed.
“The light source should be invisible!” Bulb style matters too—anything in the soft, warm range will do less harm to plants and animals than those with a white or bluish glare.
There are numerous actions people can take to help improve biodiversity in their own yard. In an interview last week, Hanson suggest planting regionally native plants is one action that results in habitat for the creatures native to your area. Laving your lawn or parts of it unmowed is one way to help. In Close to Home, Hanson visits with a Massachusetts couple who ‘put out the welcome mat’.
As the lawn’s transformation progressed, the couple began targeting patches of bare ground, or anyplace the grass looked thin, tucking in plugs or seeds gleaned from native plant sales. They established a vegetable garden, planted berry bushes, and set out a scattered orchard of fruit trees and nut trees, connecting everything with a maze of lightly mowed paths.
The result is a rich and riotous mix that even its owners sometimes have trouble keeping track of.
“Did we put these there?” Eiseman asked atone point, peering at a clump of coneflowers, and later, when we came across a lousewort, “Did I plant that?” But for Blyth and Eiseman, backyard habitat restoration isn’t so much about growing particular species in particular locations. It’s about creating complexity and structure, boosting biodiversity by setting the stage for the drama to begin, and leaving the rest to central casting. Because wherever and whenever a native plant replaces a patch of lawn grass, it attracts its own suite of native wildlife, and if you know what to look for, you can find their stories written on the leaves.
Even if you live in a concrete jungle, Hanson’s book will be a worthwhile enjoyable read.
Thor Hanson is a conservation biologist, Guggenheim fellow, and author of award-winning books including Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, Buzz, Feathers, and The Triumph of Seeds. Hanson’s research and conservation activities have taken him around the globe to study Central American trees and songbirds, nest predation in Tanzania, and the grisly feeding habits of African vultures. He served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda, where he helped establish the mountain gorilla tourism program in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. He has also helped manage a brown bear tourism project for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska. He co-hosted the PBS Nature series American Spring Live and has appeared as a guest on many programs including Biology Support on WIRED, and NPR’s Fresh Air, On Point, and Science Friday. His popular articles and essays have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, and The Los Angeles Times. He lives with his wife and son on an island in Washington State.
Press release: We know nature is good for us: studies show that spending time outdoors can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and accelerate healing. And yet, in our fast-paced, technology-focused world, we often forget to slow down and pay attention to the natural world around us. We consider the common species in our neighborhoods to be mundane, blinding us to the wonders and mysteries waiting to be uncovered: potter wasps building turrets out of mud and rocks to serve as nests for their young, thrushes singing in minor chords, and wild parrots teaching one another how to open garbage cans in search of food. Any backyard or neighborhood park can yield exciting new discoveries, and anyone’s observations can contribute to biodiversity research and conservation efforts around the globe.
A practicing field biologist with over three decades of experience, Thor Hanson retrains our eyes to reveal the hidden phenomena all around us in CLOSE TO HOME: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door (Basic Books; on sale March 11, 2025). Hanson takes readers on a tour of his own backyard, teaching us how and where we can reacquaint ourselves with local species. Through community-driven efforts like the BioSCAN project in Los Angeles or the iNaturalist app, anyone can contribute to scientific research that will help us learn more about the world, improve biodiversity, and even discover new species. Hanson introduces us to communities across the globe that are banding together to fight climate change and environmental degradation. For instance, one canton in Switzerland has built over 850 ponds to bring back dwindling amphibian populations. Citizens in Oklahoma City boost monarch butterflies on their long migration, planting the critical milkweeds they rely upon to feed and reproduce. And in Alaska, one homeowner’s backyard soil sample has yielded a promising new cancer drug, plus a compound that neutralizes pet odors.
In an era of global environmental challenges, Hanson argues that hyper-local, hands-on efforts to connect with nature have never been more important. He shows readers the myriad, simple ways to improve habitats and increase biodiversity on virtually any patch of ground, whether by planting flowers, installing birdfeeders, or leaving our lawns unmowed. Moving and reverent, CLOSE TO HOME provides a much-needed lesson in curiosity and community, one that reminds us to slow down and invest in the world waiting for us just outside our doors.