After one of the wettest monsoon seasons on record, Albuquerque is blooming with all sorts of life; and our backyard microfarm is about as teeming with life as it gets in the middle of America’s suburbs.

For the past couple of years I’ve noticed a male roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) poking around our house, climbing up on the roof, and hanging out in the garden. Just a couple of weeks ago I realized that the roadrunner had a girlfriend, when I saw both of them sitting on a fence wall together. Not long after, I found this roadrunner nest in a poplar tree with two baby chicks.

Road runners are monogamous, and they tend to their young in tandem, bringing them all sorts of food from around the area: worms, lizards, mice, pieces of vegetable from our compost pile, and who knows what else.

These omnivorous, curious looking birds (members, by the way, of the cuckoo family) are a delight to have around the home. They squawk at you when you infringe on their territory, they pique the curiosity of children, and most importantly they control small pests of the home and garden, like mice. For more about roadrunners, visit here and here.

After three years of chemical free gardening and a healthy summer monsoon, our microfarm is already becoming a hotbed of suburban biodiversity: earthworms are appearing in greater abundance in the soil; beneficial insects like bees, ladybugs and predatory wasps are everywhere; sunflowers, watermelons and squash plants have materialized unexpectedly from the soil, and wildlife is prospering.

Yesterday, while inspecting some of my plants, I heard the quick whistle of an unfamiliar bird. Looking up, I was face to face with a hawk or a falcon (or some other raptor, not quite sure what the species was), who surely was attracted by the open space and the possibility of snatching up a quick meal.  Wow.

These experiences underscore the need to convert a portion of our suburban landscapes to a small oasis of green within the confines of the concrete jungle. By doing so, we can help to conserve some of the world’s most precious resources: energy, water, and biodiversity.