Photos

Spring and Wildlife Comeback

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Click photo for larger.

The above photo was taken one block from my house. We have been seeing lots of wild turkeys in my neighborhood the last few years. I live in a mature subdivision that looks like a lot of other mature subdivisions in the United States. In fact, if you were blindfolded and dropped in there and had to identify where you were, I would wager that you would have a lot of difficulty. In other words, it is a pretty unremarkable place.

With the Spring thaw I have been seeing tons of wildlife scurrying about for chow. The deer are all over the place. I have seen the geese heading back north. A red fox ran across the road in front of my car the other day. I have lived in this area of the country all of my life, and in Madison itself for almost 14 years. Is it just me or is wildlife in general making a comeback? Are the different species adapting to development better? I never used to see things like foxes, hawks, turkeys, deer, and coyotes but now these are commonplace.

Of course all of my evidence is anecdotal. I would like some more observations from our readers that live in urban areas around the country (and the world for that matter). Do you see more animals in general? What types?

Cross posted at LITGM.

Fun Fact

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If you submit electronic files (e.g., digital photographs) on a CD to the US Copyright Office as part of a copyright application, the Copyright Office stores your CD but does not transfer the files on it to its computers or other durable media. There is also no way to resubmit or otherwise replace electronic files stored in the Copyright Office archives if the magnetic or optical media you submitted them on deteriorate.

This appears to mean that the registrations for many copyrighted photographs will become legally indefensible if/when the CDs on which the images were submitted deteriorate. The person with whom I spoke at the Copyright Office suggested submitting photographic prints or contact sheets rather than CDs. This suggestion would have been good advice until recently, but it’s impractical for people who copyright large numbers of digital photos.

I have no idea if the deteriorating-media issue will become a significant problem. Maybe not: the odds that any particular image file submitted in a copyright application will be needed to defend a copyright are low. Happily, the Copyright Office is testing a system that allows copyright registrants to upload image files over the Internet, and this new system should eliminate the CD issue for people who use it. But the many files that have been and will be submitted on CDs and DVDs are still vulnerable.