Urban deer: Rats, Bambis, stunning photo subjects
A copyedited manuscript in need of final review left no time for nature in the backwoods this past week. But nature’s mom literally brought the wild to my back step, which brought to mind one of the oldest and most emotional environmental issues I’ve ever written about – urban deer.
A mama doe has chosen my garden gate as a safe place for one of her newborn fawns to bed this year. On Thursday, a little speckled one spent 12 hours in a curl 15 feet from the back porch, while mama was off doing what she does in the panorama of deer delights that is the Bryan Park Neighborhood a half mile from Kirkwood Avenue.
That, in turn, afforded an all-day wildlife photo opp unlike any I’ve ever had. As the day progressed, the fawn’s response to a zoom lens-toting biped evolved from motionless ball to acceptance via eye contact, a consent to be photographed in a photog’s worldview. It also conjured up the phrase “rats with hooves.”
Coming Spring 2019
A Guide to Natural Areas of Northern Indiana
The latest Natural Bloomington nature book – A Guide to Natural Areas of Northern Indiana: 125 Unique Places to Explore — will be published by IU Press in Spring 2019.
Like its companion – A Guide to Natural Areas of Southern Indiana, IU Press 2016 – this roughly 400-page volume will tell the stories of what little is left of the state’s natural history, this time from Interstate 70 north to the Michigan State Line.
Both guides provide readers with comprehensive descriptions of the natural characteristics and recreational opportunities found at nature preserves, forests, wildlife areas, parks, and lakes in all four corners of the state – from Posey to Lake to Steuben to Dearborn Counties – with historical contexts and turn-by-turn/GPS directions.
The Northern Indiana sites are owned and managed by a variety of public and private organizations, including ACRES Land Trust, whose Executive Director Jason Kissell wrote the Foreword. Landscapes run the gamut, from canyon to prairie to swamp to lake, much forested, much in open sun. All are open to the public.
A Guide to Natural Areas of Northern Indiana will feature 140 color photographs captured between June 2016 and November 2017.
The cover has been designed. The manuscript is in the copyediting process.
Nature Photo eBook - This is Indiana?
Natural Bloomington is pleased to announce release of our first Nature Photo eBook This is Indiana? - The Natural Bloomington Journey: 2013-2015.
This is Indiana? is a photographic retrospective of Natural Bloomington's first three years and features 105 hi res, full-color images of the Southern Indiana landscape from the Switzerland Hills to the Southwest Lowlands.You can download a copy of This is Indiana? for free. A $10 contribution is requested.
