Nature in your Neighborhood-Kieran

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 I live just a block away from campus, and my house acts as a figurative wall; on one side is a vast natural area, on the other side is a densely populated neighborhood. The front of my house faces the Arb, which is an incredibly dense, populated forest, with old and young trees and plants all sharing their resources and growing together. On the back of my house is an alley, filled with cars and trash cans, often pruned through by Bellingham's finest domesticated raccoons. This is the first house I have lived in that has even a glimpse of the ocean, and on a sunny, clear day, you can see a sliver of the bay with mountains in the backdrop. I feel incredibly lucky to live where I do, and I try the best I can to immerse myself in the environment around me. As is true for most of Bellingham, there are many different types of plants and animals all around. I often see a family of deer hanging out in my yard. When I leave the house at night, I often see hungry raccoons, and in the morning, various birds sing outside my bedroom windows. I enjoy having various types of plants in my room, and with my blinds lifted, there is a beautiful composition of my house plants, cactuses, fiddle leaf figs, and monstera’s blending in with that background of native trees and plants outside. I am not the best at plant identification, but I am quite positive that the majority of plants close to me are native, particularly in the arb. I think that, compared to many other areas in the US, Bellingham has done a pretty good job of preserving or planting trees around the town. However, even Bellingham pales in comparison to many other countries
outside of the US, which have done a significantly better job of balancing natural habitats with urban sprawl. (Apologies for this being late; I was waiting on an SD card reader. Still trying to figure out how to upload photos in higher definition/quality.)

This is right outside of my house, and I was trying to capture this bush at night.



This tree is across from my house, and I really enjoyed the contrast between the sky's blue and the color of the tree, one side being lit and the other shaded.
I really liked the wet underbelly of this blackberry bush.


I really liked the light reflecting off of this tree near my house (File exported with very low quality)

The last glimpse of sunshine (File exported with very low quality)

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