Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham
When we moved into our house, the previous owners had left a metal water trough. Our five acres border over 100 acres of public forest land in a place where even private land is pretty wild. I’m excited to see the “backyard” wildlife we have. … Continue readingThe Water Drip
I’m at the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Bison Range, formerly the National Bison Range in Montana. In 2020, the US government returned the 18,766-acre range and its bison, located on the Flathead Indian Reservation, to the local tribes. It is now called the … Continue readingNational Bison Range
Pack Your Patience It’s 7:45 on a Monday morning, twenty minutes after the sun pierced the horizon and started to lighten the sky. The eleven-mile, one-lane Cades Cove wildlife loop is at a stop-and-crawl from the outset. I can’t see the front of this train … Continue readingCades Cove Wildlife Loop
I’m saying goodbye to this land that I’ve loved and nurtured, and that has nurtured me back. We arrived in June 2009 to a sterile, weedy landscape. Morning glory vines had overrun all of the landscape beds, their long tendril roots anchored firmly through the … Continue readingSaying Goodbye
They’re the size of a big dog only with bigger, soft, brown, pleading eyes; no wonder people want to feed them. The federally endangered Key deer only exist in the lower Florida Keys. They are a subspecies of the common white-tailed deer. Like most animals … Continue readingFlorida’s Key Deer
Getting There Driving west on I-94, it’s fast and flat through Minnesota and most of North Dakota. I pass crowded fields of sunflowers, their dry seed heads fixed toward the sky, flat terrain pockmarked by small lakes and rolling fallow crop fields. Until suddenly, the … Continue readingTheodore Roosevelt National Park – South Unit