“I would like to paint the way a bird sings.”
~ Claude Monet
~ 1840 ~ 1926
On the cusp of summer, a beautiful young blue jay has it made in the shade and savors a lovely late spring morning in mid-June at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“Meanwhile the sunsets are mad orange fools raging in the gloom....”
~ Jack Kerouac
~ 1922 ~ 1969
A Great Blue Heron is silhouetted against a blazing mad orange summer sunset in early July at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
~ 1861 ~ 1941
Perched on the banks of the Coplay Creek, a beautiful male North American Cardinal gazes upon his reflection on an April evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.
The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.
