Natural Bloomington Eco-Travels

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Natural Bloomington Eco-Travels

Natural Bloomington: Ecotours & More offers guided ecotours through Southern Indiana's rugged hill and cave country -- and more.

Natural Bloomington ecotour destinations include some of the most pristine areas in the state, including state and national forests, state parks, registered historic sites, state recreation areas and Indiana’s largest lake, as well as federally protected wilderness and public and private nature preserves. We want our ecotourism guests to experience and contemplate the region’s natural beauty in th

e twin spirits of appreciation and participation. In attempting to fulfill our mission, we subscribe to the principles set down by the international EcoTourism Society for “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” As the old saying goes, we take only photographs and leave only footprints.

14/04/2018

HOOSIER NATIONAL FOREST SPECIAL PLACES – HEMLOCK CLIFFS, WESLEY CHAPEL GULF

The U.S. Forest identifies nearly two dozen Special Places on the Hoosier National Forest, so designated because of their unique natural and historic characters.

Hemlock Cliffs
Hemlock Cliffs is arguably the most inspiring of the Hoosier National Forest’s self-declared Special Places. Encompassing a narrow, 150-foot-deep sandstone box canyon, this Crawford County natural sanctum supports towering hardwood trees and rare plants that thrive in its cool micro climes, including the namesake evergreen.
PHOTO ALBUM: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157664142298247

Wesley Chapel Gulf
A National Natural Landmark, Wesley Chapel Gulf offers a rare glimpse into the subterranean world of the Lost River Watershed in western Orange County. The 187-acre Special Place protects an exposed, peanut-shaped gulf created by the collapse of the limestone ceiling above an underground stream.
PHOTO ALBUM: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157693592483584
READ MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2018/03/10/hoosier-national-special-places-–-hemlock-cliffs-wesley-chapel-gulf

18/02/2018

SEEKING PREHISTORIC HOOSIER NATIONAL LIFE; Tincher Hollow, Beaver Creek, Rainbow Lake, Buzzard Roost

Our search for prehistoric life in the Hoosier National Forest began serendipitously on a sunny Feb. 12 morning in the U.S. Forest Service office in Bedford, where we inquired about archaeological sites near the Ohio River. The last stop there led to a wall-sized map of the Hoosier and a staffer providing detailed directions to that day’s destination—a wintry drive along King’s Ridge in southwest Lawrence County.

The Natural Bloomington to-do list has long included a formal sit down with Forest Service staff to discuss Rewilding Southern Indiana: The Hoosier National Forest book project. Among the topics would be a strategy for sensitive issues, such as at-risk plant and animal species and cultural sites. The to-meet list included Hoosier Archaeologist Angie Doyle.

Which is where serendipity made its appearance. As a staffer explained the Forest Service does not discuss archaeological sites, Angie walked by on the way to her car and a conference. We had a brief chat and agreed to meet soon.

Blog post: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2018/02/17/seeking-prehistoric-hoosier-national-life-tincher-hollow-beaver-creek-rainbow-lake
Photo Album: Tincher Hollow, Beaver Creek - http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157663120129477
Photo Album: Rainbow Lake, Buzzard Roost - http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157692585399734

13/02/2018

THE HOOSIER'S STORY – Natural history 1
A half billion years ago, the chunk of earth crust that now underlies the 202,000-acre Hoosier National Forest basked in the equatorial sun. During the Paleozoic Era, geologists say, the tectonic plate on which Southern Indiana rests—called the North American Plate—lolled about five hundred miles south of the equator, roughly where the Amazonian city of Manaus, Brazil, lies today.

Like the planet’s other twelve plates, the North American has since merged, diverged, and drifted for five hundred million years through a geologic process known as plate tectonics, momentarily settling some thirty-five-hundred miles to the north.

During the Paleozoic Era, which geologists say lasted from 570 million to 266 million years ago, the Hoosier’s rugged hill country occupied the floor of a shallow tropical sea that incessantly ebbed and flowed and changed depths. As time passed, sedimentary materials—which included skeletons, shells, bones, and other plant and animal remains—settled to the ocean floor and compressed and cemented into the bedrock that underlies Southern Indiana today.

READ MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2018/01/27/hoosiers-story-%E2%80%93-natural-history-1

27/01/2018

BACK HOME AGAIN IN THE HOOSIER NATIONAL FOREST - MCPIKE POND, KINGS RIDGE

The first three weeks of 2018 – especially the three days spent with zoom lenses and hand warmers in the Hoosier National Forest – have been tantamount to a homecoming, an icy outdoor celebration of sorts.

Since IU Press now has all the permissions needed to publish A Guide to Natural Areas of Northern Indiana, the guidebook is out of hand. Included were much-appreciated consents from ACRES Land Trust Executive Director Jason Kissel to publish the foreword he penned and from photographer friend Jaime Sweany to use her author photo on the jacket again.

Since New Year’s Day, the Natural Bloomington compass has reassumed its homier, southerly inclination, marked by subfreezing photo explorations of the Hoosier’s Elkinsville/Middle Fork Salt Creek area in southern Brown County, the Charles C. Deam Wilderness and McPike Pond areas in northeast Lawrence County and the Kings Ridge area in southwest Lawrence.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2018/01/20/back-home-again-hoosier-national-forest-mcpike-pond-kings-ridge
Photo Albums: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

08/01/2018

ELKINSVILLE - 'THE TOWN THAT WAS ... IN THE 'SHADOW OF BROWNING MOUNTAIN'

All that remains of Elkinsville is a pioneer cemetery and a roadside monument memorializing 18 families that lost their homes to Monroe Lake. Named after its inaugural resident William Elkins, who arrived about the time Indiana achieved statehood in 1816, their Southern Brown County community was submerged when the lake was created between 1962 and 1964.

Today, Elkinsville Road dead ends at Combs Road, which dead ends on a rusty iron bridge over the Middle Fork Salt Creek about 4.5 miles past Story at the foot of Browning Hill, one of the 928-foot peak’s multiple monikers. The roadside monument says of the town: “Bathed in the shadow of Browning Mountain, a wonder in itself.”

On the second day of 2018, the Elkinsville area smacked of the Antarctic, with white-tail deer and frigid photographers blithely tracking on the Middle Fork. Smooth and snow-covered, with stark, blue-black arboreal shadows, the creek could have been mistaken for a backwoods road disappearing into its Hoosier National Forest neighbor to the south.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2018/01/06/elkinsville-%E2%80%98-town-was%E2%80%99-%E2%80%98shadow-browning-mountain%E2%80%99

Photo Album: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157668066783069

01/01/2018

NEW YEAR, NEW BOOK

It seems almost providential that work on the Guide to Natural Areas of Northern Indiana came to an end on New Year’s Eve 2017. That was the unofficial target deadline from Day 1, even if overly optimistic expectations did predominate until mid-December. Proofing an 85,000-word collection of details is not only demanding, it’s the project phase during which s**t happens or, in this case, is discovered. Patience, not artificial deadlines, drives the process.

But barring a suggestion that the 125 natural areas and 145 images be pared down some – strong arguments both ways – the Northern Indiana manuscript is ready for submission to IU Press on Jan. 2, two days ahead of deadline. Now, the Natural Bloomington energy refocuses full-time in 2018 on the Hoosier National Forest.

And what an energy pulse it will be. It’s not hyperbolic in the least to say Rewilding Southern Indiana: The Hoosier National Forest is the fulfillment of a 40-year dream. As noted this time last year in a blog post about my old friend and National Geographic photographer Bill Thomas, the vision of a coffee table nature book appeared in 1978. Three of his grace the bookshelves.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2018/01/01/new-year-new-book

03/12/2017

RETURN TO THE HOOSIER NATIONAL FOREST'S BROWNING MOUNTAIN

It’s been two decades since my last hike up the Browning Hill in SoBro – Southern Brown County to non-natives. So, a trek to the top of the state’s 53rd highest point was long past due when I set the GPS on Saturday for what Google Maps calls “Browning Mountain: Indiana’s Stonehenge.”

And while the timing and conditions were near-perfect this time, they couldn’t have been more dissimilar from the last. The 1996 excursion to this Hoosier National Forest ridge top occurred in early spring. The creative medium was black-and-white film. And, let’s just say, love permeated the atmosphere alongside the peak’s spectacular and mysterious nature. The photographic mission then was more memorial than artistic.

This late-fall trip was all mission, marking a return to work on an upcoming coffee-table book called Rewilding Southern Indiana: The Hoosier National Forest. Not to mention a likewise overdue return to the trail. It’s been 2 1/2 months since an actual photo hike appeared in prose or picture on the Natural Bloomington website. The only love this time involved the work.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/12/03/return-hoosier-national-forest%E2%80%99s-browning-mountain
Photo Album: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157667022920309

12/11/2017

SANDHILL CRANE SEASON AT JASPER-PULASKI FISH & WILDLIFE AREA
A new video on the Natural Bloomington YouTube site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcpM8J4J3nQ&t=3s

08/11/2017

JASPER-PULASKI SANDHILL CRANES Photo Album
I've posted a hefty Photo Album from my afternoon at Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area on Nov. 3. Many thanks to property manager Jim Bergens for the guidance and support while I was there. A blog post will be forthcoming.

http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157686995267142

29/10/2017

DUSTING OFF THE NIKKOR ZOOM; FOCUS ON JASPER-PULASKI SANDHILL CRANES

The normal midterm teaching glut combined with a variety of personal and professional issues to force a six-week respite from nature work here at Natural Bloomington. While much-needed, it’s a hiatus that will at last come to an end next week. At a minimum, I will hike Browning Mountain in the Hoosier National Forest.

Weather permitting, however, I’ll photographically engage a few thousand sandhill cranes at the Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area. Upwards of 10,000 of these magnificently winged creatures, a State Species of Special Concern, gather at this natural area’s marshlands on their winter migrations south from Central Wisconsin. The latest count puts their Northwest Indiana numbers at roughly 5,600, with a peak expected in late November.

I have Monday phone call scheduled with folks at the IDNR’s Division of Fish & Wildlife for permission to gain closer access than the public viewing tower, which still offers superb views. If the current weather forecast doesn’t hold – what are the odds? – I will plan for Thanksgiving week.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/10/28/dusting-nikkor-zoom-focus-jasper-pulaski-sandhill-cranes

03/09/2017

CHASING THE RED-TAIL; BOOK LOVERS IN DUNN MEADOW; A NEW-BOOK SEEDLING

An unplanned, two-week break from the keyboard – inspired by an exhausting summer, a new car, a new semester and other distractions – is not tantamount to a vacation. Just a slower pace and lower profile.

A decision to add three more natural areas to the Northern Indiana guidebook led landscape photographer Gary R. Morrison and I to Muncie on Aug. 25 to explore and shoot wetland, woods, prairie, and the White River West Fork at sites owned and/or managed by the Red-tail Land Conservancy: Hughes Nature Preserve, John M. Craddock Wetland Nature Preserve and Red-tail Nature Preserve – as well as the White River, which bisects the first two.

Also during this keyboard hiatus, I had the honor of meeting and talking to a diverse variety of book and nature lovers at IU Press’s second annual Quarry Festival of Books on the IU campus and planted the seed for a new book project with the working title A Guide to Natural Areas on the Ohio River.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/09/02/chasing-red-tail-book-lovers-dunn-meadow-new-book-seedling
Photo Albums: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

13/08/2017

GRAND KANKAKEE MARSH PERSPECTIVE; HOOSIER NATIONAL'S BROOKS CABIN WITH OAK HERITAGE CONSERVANCY

What’s left on the Northern Indiana guidebook project requires nothing more than a computer, a circumstance that, like the journey itself, has powerful upsides to balance the downs – perspective, to name but one. For example, exploring the Kankakee Fish & Wildlife Area as one of six natural areas in a single day – one of 14 in three days – leaves little time to reflect upon its once-dominant ecosystem that has nearly vanished.

Before the Americans finished channelizing and straightening the Kankakee River in the early 20th century, swamp occupied nearly a million acres of Northwest Indiana from the Illinois State Line to Michigan City. Officially known as the Grand Kankakee Marsh (or Grand Kankakee Swamp), this vast mass of saturated landscape was also known as the Everglades of the North, even though it was the biggest wetland in North America.

In the early 1800s, navigating the Kankakee River – the great marsh’s liquid spine – required more than 2,000 turns on a 240-mile journey from its source five miles southwest of South Bend to the Illinois State Line. By 1917, the Kankakee’s Indiana path to the Illinois River had been ditched, straightened and shortened to 85 miles, the grand swamp converted to agriculture and industrial-urban areas.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/08/12/grand-kankakee-marsh-perspective-hoosier-national%E2%80%99s-brooks-cabin-and-oak-heritage

06/08/2017

FROM THE DUNES NATIONAL LAKESHORE TO THE HOOSIER NATIONAL FOREST, STARTING 14,000 YEARS AGO

With the Northern Indiana guidebook travel and photography phases complete, it’s transition time at Natural Bloomington. Attention is turning back south to the Hoosier National Forest.

Thirteen new Photo Albums from the last road trip to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Northwest Indiana’s moraine country are now posted, featuring the sandy region’s natural features beyond the dunes: the forests, the wetlands and the prairies. Write-ups on more than 120 preserves, parks and wildlife areas are in third (and last) draft edit, right on the 75,000-word target.

Coming next is an exploration of cultural and historic sites in the Hoosier National Forest, some of which are listed on the U.S. Forest Service’s Special Places list. Images from most are already in the photo archive: Pioneer Mothers Memorial Forest, Hickory Ridge Lookout Tower, Lick Creek African American Settlement, Mano Point, Rickenbaugh House, Buzzard Roost, Hemlock Cliffs and Buffalo Trace.

READ MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/08/05/dunes-national-lakeshore-hoosier-national-forest-starting-14000-years-ago

PHOTO ALBUMS: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

30/07/2017

THE ROAD ENDS AT THE INDIANA DUNES, WITH JFK TALE SELDOM TOLD
So, barreling through rush hour and construction on Interstate 80/94 between Gary and Hobart, via Hammond, isn’t the way I envisioned the last leg of my Natural Indiana guidebook journey. Neither was photographing a Queen Anne’s lace with an egret calling overhead, while the PA of an industrial packaging plant reverberated from across a chain-link fence.

But ending it in Indiana dune country always was the plan. Aside from the hill country I’ve lived in for 45 years, of the 12 Indiana natural regions explored in the past four years, the dunes were most familiar. And in every relevant way – history, nature, geography, demography – the Hoosier sand hills are one of the nation’s most spectacular natural environments and conservation stories.

"To the Midwest," Carl Sandburg wrote in 1958, the Lake Michigan dunes are what "the Grand Canyon is to Arizona and the Yosemite to California. They constitute a signature of time and eternity."

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/07/29/road-ends-indiana-dunes-jfk-tale-seldom-told

Photo Albums:
HERON ROOKERY, PINHOOK BOG, COWLES BOG: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157686931416245
MOUNT BALDY, LAKE MICHIGAN: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157684216560204
DUNES NATURE PRESERVE, LAKE MICHIGAN: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157686931821225

30/07/2017

NORTHERN INDIANA NATURE, NOT WILDERNESS; MORE AMERICAN BISON AT KANKAKEE SANDS

With only three days of travel remaining on the Northern Indiana leg of a four-year journey through natural Indiana, I’m transitioning to a more reflective view of the project, starting with some numbers.

For example, the most common rejoinder I’ve received to the notion of a guide to Northern Indiana natural areas has been, “Are there any?” Well, I could tell tales of camping at and/or exploring several locations in the book that date back more than three decades. My first camping trip ever was a Boy Scout outing at Turkey Run State Park in the 1960s. So, I’m not surprised that there will be more natural areas in this book (125 +/-) than in its Southern Indiana counterpart (119).

But, as I realized returning from a three-day venture through the Grand Prairie Natural Region last week, in Northern Indiana I’m experiencing nature, not wilderness. At 15,000 acres, the Dunes National Lakeshore is the largest refuge north of I-70; the Southern Indiana book features 11 that are bigger than the Lakeshore. The Hoosier National Forest’s 202,000 acres are more than the northern sites combined.

READ MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/07/22/northern-indiana-nature-not-wilderness-more-american-bison-kankakee-sands

PHOTO ALBUM: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157686520018416

16/07/2017

INDIANA'S GRAND PRAIRIE – WHERE BISON ROAM FREE
When French explorers first set foot in contemporary Indiana in the late 1670s, the state was almost 90 percent forest, from the southernmost shore of the Lake Michigan to the Ohio River. Tallgrass prairie comprised the bulk of what wasn’t deep green.

The iconic Great Plains that – along with magnificent bison herds – blanketed the nation’s midsection from the Rocky Mountains east reached its easternmost point in a narrow swath of land that today borders Indiana's northwestern border with Illinois. The tallgrass – one of three basic prairie types, along with mixed-grass and shortgrass – dominated a hundred miles of landscape from the Kankakee River basin near Rensselaer to the Wabash River Valley north of Terre Haute.

But after two centuries of agricultural drainage and urbanization, Indiana’s Grand Prairie today is the most altered natural region in the state. Only miniscule remnants of the original exist, mostly along railroad tracks and around pioneer cemeteries. But there are places, like The Nature Conservancy’s Kankakee Sands, where prairie retains a hold on the land – and where bison roam free for the first time in nearly 200 years.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/07/15/indiana%E2%80%99s-grand-prairie-%E2%80%93-where-bison-roam-free

09/07/2017

NEW NORTH-CENTRAL INDIANA LAKE COUNTRY PHOTO ALBUMS
No new blog post this week due to an extended excursion through North-Central Indiana, but the Natural Bloomington website features new Photo Albums of 16 protected natural areas in LaGrange, Elkhart, St. Joseph, Kosciusko and Fulton Counties. -- Next up: Northwest Indiana's prairie lands.
http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

02/07/2017

A GUIDEBOOK IN 10 MONTHS? THE END IS IN SIGHT

After 30-plus years as a professional writer/photographer, I have a handle on what I’m capable of on deadline. And I have to confess, when I was approached by IU Press about a Northern Indiana guidebook last Labor Day, I never envisioned writing another 400-pager in less than a year. I wouldn’t have dared predict that two-thirds of it would be photographed and written in second draft in 10 months.

I guess I didn’t appreciate the impact that accrued efficiencies would have when writing a second book from the same template. I hit both of those milestones this past week – a 74,000-word first draft on 127 natural areas north of I-70, 78 of them explored to one level or another and expanded upon in the text. With the Index, Species List and Glossary also done, all that’s missing is the introduction and foreword.

Done also means processing more than 1,300 images captured at 28 natural areas during our recent three-day camping trip to Northeast Indiana – and posting 27 Photo Albums on the Natural Bloomington Nature Photography page. The Little Cedar Creek Nature Preserve north of Fort Wayne is closed while efforts to combat invasive species are ongoing.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/07/01/guidebook-10-months-end-sight

Photo Albums: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

25/06/2017

FOLLOWING THE DUSTINS' FOOTSTEPS: NORTHEAST INDIANA LOVES ACRES LAND TRUST

I anticipated our arrival at the Dustin Nature Preserve as much as any of the 200-plus Indiana natural areas I’ve explored in the past four years. The Huntertown couple were pioneers in the environmental movement that swept Indiana and the nation in the 1960s and 70s. I profiled Tom in my 1996 book Eternal Vigilance: Nine Tales of Environmental Heroism in Indiana and spent a weekend at their home north of Fort Wayne, photographing Tom and the Cedar Creek in the valley below.

The Dustins were founding members of ACRES Land Trust, the second-oldest nonprofit land conservation organization in Indiana. Their home is now the group’s headquarters and is surrounded by the Dustin and two other preserves. So parking outside the rustic, cedar-and-stone structure with its low, sloping roof brought back a torrent of memories. Jane died in 2003, Tom in 2004.

And, of the countless impressions I have from exploring nearly four dozen natural areas in Northeast Indiana during the month of June, the most vivid involve ACRES properties, which number 30 – to date.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/06/24/following-dustins%E2%80%99-footsteps-northeast-indiana-loves-acres-land-trust
Photo Albums: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

11/06/2017

NORTH TO THE LAKES; WABASH VALLEY WILDLIFE
The Spring Lake Woods and Bog Nature Preserve offered a peak into the Natural Bloomington future last week. A half dozen sites in the Central Till Plain Natural Region remain unexplored before the Northern Lakes Natural Region phase begins. But Spring Lake is the first of 37 natural lake areas on the itinerary.

The Spring Lake preserve protects a thousand shoreline feet on Lake Everett – Allen County’s only natural lake – and was one of the 16 natural areas I hiked and photographed for the Northern Indiana guidebook last week. The others followed the Wabash River and its watershed from Peru to Fort Wayne.

And while the range of images captured were as diverse as the places explored – a dozen Dedicated State Nature Preserves, three State Lakes, and two State Parks – this adventure stands out for the critters that presented themselves along the way.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/06/10/north-lakes-wabash-valley-wildlife
Photo Albums: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

04/06/2017

Blog post
ON THE WABASH RIVER, THE SUGAR CREEK AND THE TIPPECANOE, TOO

The Black Rock Nature Preserve was the most disappointing of the nine natural areas we explored during a three-day, two-night camping trip in the Wabash River Valley last week. The history-rich site of a 100-foot bluff of black rock bluff overlooking the Indiana state river southeast of Lafayette was easily the most anticipated of the journey, which began on the Lower Sugar Creek in Parke County and ended on the Tippecanoe River in Pulaski County.

My disillusion, however, was based on selfish expectations and not nature. In fact, the promontory used as a lookout by Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet in the early 1800s, was as magnificent as billed. Trees did obscure what in winter and early spring is a view unlike any other a hundred miles or more up or downriver – the primary source of my frustration. Multiple technology fumbles also contributed to my mood at Black Rock, learning experiences I’ve resolved for future trips.

Indeed, that brief stop did produce the first Wabash siting of the year, not to mention several of my favorite images from the week. And that’s saying something, considering we had near perfect weather, and I posted Photo Albums with more than 125 images, culled from three to four times that many originals.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/06/03/wabash-river-sugar-creek-and-tippecanoe-too
Photo Albums: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs

21/05/2017

Blog post
PHOTOBOMBED AT RITCHEY WOODS; PREHISTORY AT MOUNDS STATE PARK; ECO-HISTORY AT DAVIS-PURDUE

Pitching my first tent in more than three decades will probably emerge over time as the most memorable experience from Summer 2017’s first overnight excursion last week. But there will be stiff competition from close encounters with two-, four-, and six-legged creatures; an old-growth forest too dense to pe*****te; and a blockaded, razor-wired prison.

The two-day journey featured three permanently protected natural areas – Ritchey Woods Nature Preserve in Fishers, Mounds State Park just outside Anderson, the Davis-Purdue Agricultural Center Forest just outside of nowhere – and the Wilbur Wright Fish & Wildlife Area just outside the New Castle Correctional Facility.

At Ritchey I was photobombed by a pair of pink shoes. At the rest, I did the photobombing.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/05/20/photobombed-ritchey-woods-prehistory-mounds-state-park-eco-history-davis-purdue

Photo Albums: http://naturalbloomington.com/photographs

17/05/2017

New Photo Album
RITCHEY WOODS NATURE PRESERVE
The 55-acre Ritchey Woods Nature Preserve is located in the northern Indianapolis bedroom town of Fishers. It features upland forest with a swampy area on the Cheeney Creek (pronounced Chaney).
http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157683915391445

14/05/2017

Blog post
WILDFLOWER EXPLOSION, OLD-GROWTH AT SHRADER-WEAVER; CAMPING ON THE WHITE RIVER

Last week’s exploration of the Shrader-Weaver Nature Preserve was three years in the making. If fact, this National Natural Landmark (NNL) is the reason A Guide to Natural Areas of Southern Indiana’s subtitle includes the curiously un-round 119 Unique Places to Explore.

Designated an NNL because of its presettlement, old-growth forest, Shrader was planned as Southern Indiana natural area No. 120. But at the last-minute I discovered that, even though it’s located south of Interstate 70 just north of Connsersville, ecologically the preserve is in Indiana’s Central Till Plain Natural Region and was therefore out of book's range.

Due to timing and weather, the delay continued for another costly two to three weeks this year. Costly because, by the time landscape photographer Gary Morrison and I ventured to Shrader-Weaver on Monday, the state-endangered nodding trillium were past prime photo time. Still, the journey was worth the wait.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/05/13/wildflower-explosion-old-growth-shrader-weaver-camping-white-river
Photo album: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157680859949272

07/05/2017

Blog post

FACE TO FACE WITH SOME YELLOW LADY SLIPPERS; CONTEMPLATING THE HOOSIER BOOK

A reliable tip about a patch of yellow lady slippers displaying their state watch-listed colors in the wooded shadows just off Tower Ridge Road stirred a quick, unexpected Tuesday afternoon excursion to the Charles C. Deam Wilderness. The timing and logistics couldn’t have been better.

Tuesday clearly had the week’s best weather potential. But there wasn’t anywhere I had the time and inspiration to explore – until Monroe County Naturalist Cathy Meyer messaged there were “nearly 100” of these radiant yellow beauties blooming just off this remote, backcountry road. Serious nature photographers don’t ignore a Cathy message that ends with “incredible!”

Besides, her message arrived at 2:02 p.m., two minutes after a planned meeting that kept me in town for the day had fallen off the log. And roadside meant a leisurely drive through the woods, not a strenuous trek through hills and hollers. Sunshine at 2:30 sealed the deal.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/05/07/face-face-some-yellow-lady-slippers-thinking-hoosier-book
Photo Album: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157680658713892

04/05/2017

This 3 1/2-minute Natural Bloomington slideshow features wildflowers captured in Southern Indiana's backcountry so far this year. The slideshow is posted on the Natural Bloomington YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AJ7Au2CeHU.

30/04/2017

Blog post

‘INTIMATE SYCAMORE LANDSCAPES’; HEADING TO SHRADER-WEAVER NATURE PRESERVE

Two public presentations in six days made this school year’s final week a little more hectic than usual. But I got to spend time with old friends and meet and share my four-year-and-counting journey through the Indiana backcountry with some new ones.

From those events at The Venue and Green Drinks Bloomington, I posted the slideshow I presented called Intimate Sycamore Landscapes on the Natural Bloomington YouYube Channel. It’s a narrated, eight-minute peek at the 16 Sycamore Land Trust properties included in the Guide to Southern Indiana Natural Areas.

My students are making final tweaks to their final projects, and I’m effectively full time on the nature beat again. The first hint of sunshine this week, and I’m headed east to the Shrader-Weaver Nature Preserve, with a stop at the Wilbur Wright Fish & Wildlife Area.

Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/04/29/%E2%80%98intimate-sycamore-landscapes%E2%80%99-heading-shrader-weaver-nature-preserve

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Videos

SANDHILL CRANE SEASON AT JASPER-PULASKI FISH & WILDLIFE AREA

SANDHILL CRANE SEASON AT JASPER-PULASKI FISH & WILDLIFE AREA A new video on the Natural Bloomington YouTube site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcpM8J4J3nQ&t=3s

WILDFLOWER SEASON - SPRING 2017

SLIDESHOW: 'THE YEAR IN NATURE PHOTOGAPHY 2016 2016'; MAROTT N...

SLIDESHOW: 'THE YEAR IN NATURE PHOTOGAPHY 2016 2016'; MAROTT NATURE PRESERVE As a journalist, my natural rhythm is to lay back at the end of the year and review the year just past. And, of course, the biggest developments in 2016 were essentially completing my equipment upgrade and signing two book contracts that will keep me committed to the woods for two more years, at least. However, in my eyes, 2016 was the year I finally got down on Lynda.com and refined my video and audio editing skills. I've dabbled with them a bit here and there, and my students and I spend a month each semester producing short video projects. But for a number of reasons -- i.e. the hands-on is pretty tedious -- I've never really applied myself. I doubt video will become a staple, but this year I produced three videos on the Natural Bloomington YouTube Channel -- a trail doc, a six-minute natural history slide show and, on New Years Eve, The Natural Bloomington Year in Nature Photography 2016. The natural history show was the early stage of a 20-minute show I presented at the Wylie House Museum on Oct. 20 Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2017/01/01/slideshow-year-nature-photography-2016-marott-nature-preserve-remembering-bill

Photo Album HOOSIER NATIONAL FOREST - MARTIN HOLLOW TRAIL - HICKORY RIDGE LOOKOUT TOWER SUNSET April 25, 2016 I followed the sun Monday along the Hoosier National Forest's Martin Hollow Trail and up the Hickory Ridge Lookout Tower for the sunset. Mission No. 1 was to create my first time lapse sunset video (which may or may not get published) and to capture the special qualities of the late-evening forest sun. Here's a slide show and a link to a Photo Album: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157665460712453

Sunday Morning Nature Missive - April 24, 2016 HICKORY RIDGE TOWER COLLEGE PARTY; MAY 7 HIKE WITH SIERRA CLUB ANDY MAHLER The retired side of my semi-retired life reascends Thursday afternoon, after I present my semester recap / class farewell talk, the very last in Ernie Pyle Hall on the IU campus. I've spent parts of 25 years learning, guest speaking and teaching in that building. It'll be a bittersweet moment, that's for certain. So, with my workload already fading -- from here on I'm just critiquing student websites and short videos -- I am at long last turning the bulk of my attention back to my nature work. Since I began shooting video in January, I've harbored repressed visions of videotaping a sunset over the Hoosier horizon from the Hickory Ridge Lookout Tower. On Saturday night, I headed southeast from Bloomington to release them. Plan B was to capture some late evening light on the Martin Hollow Trail, which tracks west just below the tower. READ MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2016/04/24/hickory-ridge-tower-college-party-may-7-sierra-club%C2%A0hike-andy-mahler SEE MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157667506976585

HOOSIER NATIONAL FOREST - NEBO RIDGE TRAIL April 3, 2016 I went in search of ridge top wildflowers and other early spring life on the Nebo Ridge Trail in the Hoosier National Forest in southeast Brown County, I didn't see much on the hike in, I presume because it was chilly, until I came upon an amazing patch of cleft phlox basking in the early April sun. On the way out, as the temp hit the low 60s, the trail seemingly had come alive with spring beauties, blue violets and other blooming lovelies. Here's a brief slide show. I posted a Photo Album at http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157666651792821

Sunday Morning Nature Missive - March 27, 2016 DOWN ON MY KNEES UP ON MILLER RIDGE In any given March, Miller Ridge in Brown County is remote, high, relatively dry and, like forestlands across Southern Indiana, displays the first signs of re-awakening woodland life -- greenbriar, lichens and wildflowers, for starters. Towering 300 feet above the Crooked and Panther Creek Valleys, it's also a good workout. This March, Miller was the perfect place to experiment with my new photo system. I used Saturday's three-hour trek along the Tecumseh Trail on the 900-foot elevation ridge as an opportunity to shoot closeups with my macro lens. The blossoming toothworts, phlox and beauties of spring that spot the warming forest floor, on both the ridge tops and the valley floors, served as the experimental subjects. Read more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2016/03/27/down-my-knees-miller-ridge See more: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157664131770303

TWIN CREEK VALLEY AND HENDERSON PARK March 18, 2016 Stop two on Friday's photo journey to Washington County took us to the Twin Creek Valley and Henderson Park. Here's a slide show from there, and a link to a Photo Album on the Natural Bloomington website. http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157663801418213

CAVE RIVER VALLEY NATURAL AREA March 18 2016 Here's a slide show from a photo trip to the Cave River Valley in northwest Washington County. I posted a Photo Album on the Natural Bloomington website. http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157663777363803

Sunday Morning Nature Missive - March 13, 2016 STAYNG HIGH ON TERRILL RIDGE Unpredictable weather forced a change in plans announced last week to hike on Nebo Ridge in southeast Brown County. After 12 hours of fallacious forecasts of cloud breaks, I opted instead to continue my closer-to-home photo exploration of the Deam Wilderness. And after days of nonstop rain, I chose to stay on the high ground, specifically the Terrill Ridge Trail that leads north from the Hickory Ridge Lookout Tower. The trail follows a ridge top road to the 19th-century Terrill Cemetery and features two wildlife ponds where I knew, at a minimum, I'd find reflections of the sort I wrote about last week. The road is maintained for family access to the cemetery and, while soggy, was still easily traversed. Along the way I encountered a backpacker who told me of another water hole east of the trail on "county line road," a now overgrown roadway that delineates the boundary between Monroe and Brown Counties. I counted off the 400 paces he advised and found a campsite but no water. READ MORE: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/blog/2016/03/13/staying-high-terrill-ridge PHOTO ALBUM: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157665745908056

COPE HOLLOW TRAIL - CHARLES C. DEAM WILDERNESS January 29, 2016 I spent a near-perfect Friday afternoon on a Photo Hike along the Cope Hollow Trail in the Charles C. Deam Wilderness. This up-and-down trek involved three ridges and three creek bottoms. Here's a Facebook slide show. Photo Album: http://www.naturalbloomington.com/photographs/set/72157663538008660

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Our Story

The Natural Bloomington Eco-Travel project chronicles in image and prose environmental journalist Steven Higgs’s five-year-and-counting exploration of Indiana’s natural heritage.

Begun as an ecotourism project in Spring 2013, Natural Bloomington has evolved into a full-time nature book enterprise. Indiana University Press published A Guide to Natural Areas of Southern Indiana in Spring 2016. A companion called A Guide to Natural Areas of Northern Indiana will be published in Spring 2018.

Rewilding Southern Indiana: The Hoosier National Forest -- a coffee table book on Indiana’s wildest and largest public land holding -- is planned for Spring 2019. 2018 will focus almost exclusively on the Hoosier.

Blogs and digital photographs from more 250 natural areas from all across the state explored so far are archived on the Natural Bloomington website.

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SANDHILL CRANE SEASON AT JASPER-PULASKI FISH & WILDLIFE AREA

WILDFLOWER SEASON - SPRING 2017

SLIDESHOW: 'THE YEAR IN NATURE PHOTOGAPHY 2016 2016'; MAROTT N...

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