City Escapes Nature Photography: City Escapes Nature Photography Newsletter

CITY ESCAPES

Nature Photography, LLC

Newsletter

May, 2010

Make Time to Enjoy Nature

In light of the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the 30^th anniversary of the Mt. Saint Helens eruption, we would like to remind everyone to go out and actually enjoy and experience the beauty of the natural world. These events are reminders that our landscape is constantly changing, literally overnight in some cases. Such landscapes are rarely destroyed forever; Mother Nature is nothing if not resilient. They are, however, deeply altered for long stretches of time, in some cases requiring hundreds of years to return to their previous state, in others becoming something entirely new, never returning to their previous state.

Many disasters are so devastating that the ecosystem affected is fundamentally destroyed. While another ecosystem will eventually take the original’s place, what was once there is gone forever. This is the most serious danger of the oil spill, and why so much effort is required to stop the oncoming devastation. With other disasters, while the damage is extensive, the changes are not always entirely negative, and do not result in the complete devastation of an entire ecosystem. The Yellowstone fires, for example, while destroying a great deal of forested land, also reinvigorated and renewed that same land, clearing the way for new growth and fertilizing the soil. And they left in their wake a completely different kind of beauty. Nonetheless, those who might have wanted to see the Park in its pre-fire glory suddenly found themselves out of time. Were you one of those people?

You do not, however, have to take a long trip to a far away place to enjoy natural beauty. Wherever you are, there are bound to be some elements of the wild, even if they have now been tamed. Trees, shrubs, and/or cacti are ubiquitous, finding their way into cities and towns as well as the countryside and deserts, and all offer their own unique version of splendor. A multitude of superbly hued and wonderfully smelling flowers are common, even if only in your neighbor’s yard. Birds of all sorts roost, nest, and migrate all around us, filling the air not only with the colorful flutter of their graceful wings, but also the musical notes of their calls, songs, honks and tweets (the original tweeters!). I have seen herds of deer in the middle of a city as large and bustling as London, been amazed at the size of a resident flock of swans in Hamburg, and eyed coyotes mere miles outside of Houston. And yet, I have also met people living in Salt Lake City, a town that is closely bordered by glorious mountain ranges, who never notice the mountains on their daily travels. They know the mountains are there, of course, they just never pay any attention to them – which means they miss seeing the peaks light up at sunset, and dramatic storms getting caught on the jagged edges of the mountain rims, churning in place.

We urge you to pay attention to all of those natural wonders that you see, not only on vacations, but perhaps especially in your day to day life. Nature is full of wonders and beauty, and it waits only for us to notice and appreciate it. Don’t wait until a disaster forces you to notice it; you will miss so much if you do.

Happy Mother’s Day!

We would like to wish all of the mothers out there (ours in particular!) a wonderful Mother’s Day! We hope that your families spoiled you rotten in celebration, as you have so often done for us.

May’s Fun Fact

Think nine months is a long time to be pregnant? Try being an alpine salamander: they are pregnant for up to 38 months! The average gestation period for this 5.5 inch salamander is two years, but the higher up on the mountain slopes the female salamander lives, the longer she carries her young before birth. It is thought that the higher altitudes provide less food, as well as shorter periods of warmth for the salamander to be active. This requires her to remain pregnant until she has had enough time and nourishment to completely develop her young, which are not laid as eggs, like most amphibians, but born as fully-formed salamanders.