Contest seeks reflections on connectedness to the land

By Randy Miller

Leopold Heritage Group

With the remarkably mild winter we’ve been experiencing this year, many people are already thinking spring. Even the songbirds seem to like it, adding their lyrical notes to the air in recent days.

So it’s no wonder those who enjoy the outdoors are itching to get spring gwoing, although its official start is still a month away.

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Keen observation of the natural world is a common thread of the winners in the essay, poetry and art divisions of the Wild Words and Art contest over the past five years.

People who write about, draw and photograph nature, whether a duck hunter, a bird watcher or simply a hiker, have that trait in common. They not only experience wonder and joy at the things they see in nature, but also feel a tangible sense of belonging, of wanting to understand the natural world.

Many people — some might argue most people — now live in a virtual world. Earphones and cellphones and laptops are extensions of the human body, rendering nature all but irrelevant.

But it’s not irrelevant to people who write about, paint or take photos of nature. They notice and marvel at the weather, the wind, butterflies and chinch bugs, leaf patterns and wildflowers, all of the bounty provided by the natural landscape. Who has not gotten a feeling of contentedness wandering across the countryside beside a babbling brook?

Famed naturalist Aldo Leopold was an exemplary observer of nature his entire life. Here’s an excerpt from an essay in his book “A Sand County Almanac,” to get those contest juices flowing as the Leopold Heritage Group launches its sixth annual Wild Words & Art contest. It is a recollection of his days as a youth hunting partridge in his hometown of Burlington, titled “Red Legs Kicking:”

“When my father gave me the shotgun, he said I might hunt partridges with it, but that I might not shoot them from trees. I was old enough, he said, to learn wing-shooting.

“My dog was good at treeing partridge, and to forego a sure shot in the tree in favor of a hopeless one at the fleeing bird was my first exercise in ethical codes. Compared with a treed partridge, the devil and his seven kingdoms was a mild temptation.

“At the end of my second season of featherless partridge-hunting, I was walking one day through an aspen thicket when a big partridge rose with a roar at my left, and, towering over the aspens, crossed behind me, hell-bent for the nearest cedar swamp. It was a swinging shot of the sort the partridge-hunter dreams about, and the bird tumbled dead in a shower of feathers and golden leaves.

"I could draw a map today of each clump of red bunchberry and each blue aster that adorned the mossy spot where he lay, my first partridge on the wing. I suspect my present affection for bunchberries and asters dates from that moment.”

With such inspiration as Leopold’s writing can provide, the contest seeks to engage residents in a 50-mile radius of Burlington in a discussion of Leopold’s land ethic by encouraging them to express themselves — in essays, poems, art and photography — in ways that will help them connect to their place in the community of the land.

As usual, first- through third-place winners will be chosen by a panel of teachers, naturalists, artists and journalists. Prizes in each division are $50 for first place, $30 for second place and $20 for third place. All winners also will receive a copy of “A Sand County Almanac,” considered by many to be the bible of the environmental and ecology movements.

The theme this year is “Reflections on the Natural World,” a purposefully broad theme to allow writers, artists and photographers to express themselves freely on any subject involving nature.

A couple of minor changes have been made to the contest this year. The categories have been broadened and reduced to just two: a youth division for eighth-graders and younger and a teen and adult division for high school freshmen and older.

Also, prizes will be awarded in the photography division and they must be entered as high-resolution digital images. (See the contest rules with this story.)

The contest officially opens today and closes on April 13. Winners will be announced during the Earth Day celebration on April 21 and will be published in The Hawk Eye on April 22.