I'm an unapologetic worrier about our environment. Sorry, George W. (Geez, what am I saying - I'm not sorry at all if I offended George and his friends). This is a wetlands in our community that the golf course maintenance folks in the past have "clear-cut" in the name of cattail control - while taking out a several times larger area of wild flowers (like the yellow tickseed sunflowers seen here) at the same time. The wildflowers were "scalped" by cutting below ground level (and removed thus stopping their ability to reseed) while the cattails were cut 6 inches above their roots and the cuttings left to fertilize and propagate the following year's growth. Wow! Talk about stupid and ugly all at the same time.
I've taken to making before/after images so that folks can be reminded of what had been - environmental photography?. This PAD is actually an "after" taken yesterday - two years after the worst clear cutting. They laid off last year after I raised a big stink and then cut again this year (mainly the cattails) when they thought the furor had died down and residents had forgotten. Removing invasive cattails is fine as long as done properly (including replacement of invasive species with native plants as required by Virginia Dept of Environmental Quality).
Posted this today on the community website's front page with the caption "Protect our Wetlands". Shot at the 35 mm equivalent of 630 mm. I kept trying to get her in a good position relative to the yellow flowers - especially the ones on the near bank (lower right corner) which with aperture wide open would give a soft blurry yellow haze. She flew off a minute later.
I love this write up. How often do you get to piss off the Community developer, the home owner's association, and the flat earth folks in denial about what we're doing to the environment all at the same time? But, then, realistically I suspect they could give less of a hoot what folks like me care or say. It must be post-convention politics withdrawal that brought this out - how much more of this election season non-issue smallness crap (from both sides) do we have to take. Is anyone ever going to talk about the real issues? Does anyone care?