“Go into nature with your whole body awake. Look closely but also listen for what you can’t see. Breathe in the smells of soil, leaves, and water. Feel bark under your hand, stone under your feet, air on your skin.”
Jenny Richards – Naturalist and Environmental Educator
Read about this photo documentary.
About this photo documentary
I live by the Appalachian Trail in New York’s Hudson Valley. The terrain is a mix of low mountains, hardwood forests, wetlands, lakes, and rivers. Oak, maple, and hickory define the uplands. Streams run cold through hemlock stands and feed into the Hudson River. In season, the area supports a wide range of birdlife—songbirds in migration, waterbirds in the marshes, and raptors overhead. The Hudson Valley is rich with lakes and protected water reservoirs that provide New York City’s fresh water.
Most of my photography happens within a few miles from my home, many from Nuclear Lake, Whaley Lake and the Appalachian Trail. I’ve set up my backyard as a functional habitat, not a stage. Native shrubs and berry plants bring in resident and migratory birds. Pollinator beds—milkweed, bee balm, coneflower—support bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
The goal is simple: Let the birds come to me. The everyday birds—chickadees, finches, chickadees, robins, sparrows—are not background. They are vital indicators. If they disappear, the entire ecosystem will collapse.
Nuclear Lake
My “Walden Pond” is Nuclear Lake, here in Pawling, New York, where I’ve walked the same loop for more than three decades, in step with the slow changes of season and time. Once, in the 1950s it was a contaminated radioactive site. The lake has settled back into itself—it is now clean and healthy, ringed by second-growth forest, cattails, and quiet wetlands. Osprey, Bald Eagles, bear, bobcats and coyote pass through, herons work the shallows, and in winter the ice records the traffic of fox and deer. Walking it regularly, you notice what others miss—the first migrant in spring, the shift in light, the subtle rise and fall of water. The mind slows down. The repetition, the familiarity, the steady presence of the place—it settles you. There’s a Buddhist idea that everything you need to understand the world can be found in your own backyard. Walk the same ground long enough, and it not only starts to speak—it steadies you, puts things back in proportion, and gives the soul a place to find peace.
“Love and protect your common local birds lest they become uncommon.”
Frank Matheis