A Bird's Eye View

Here's an interesting project. Do you remember Bill Lishman?

He's the Canadian inventor, artist and nature enthusiast from Ontario who, 30 to 40 years ago, used an ultralight aircraft to fly with migrating birds. There was even a movie in 1996 based on his unique life: Fly Away Home.

He also built his own unique house, underground.

Bill lives on part of the Oak Ridges Moraine, a geological landform of rolling hills just north of Toronto that stretches east to west from Rice Lake in the east to the Caledon Hills in the west.

 It's a place of great beauty and natural diversity, with many wild places among the man-made developments and a trail, the Oak Ridges Trail, extending from one end to the other.

As a photog in addition to being an aviator, Bill has a collection of thousands of photographs of the Oak Ridges Moraine taken from his ultralight that he has decided should go into a book for others to enjoy. This book is being birthed by a modern publishing method: crowd-funding. So far, just over 3/4 of the goal of $10,000 has been raised, with the book is scheduled for release on April 22, Earth Day.

Proceeds from sale of the book will support  Save the Oak Ridges Moraine (STORM), a coalition of 25 citizen's groups and individuals dedicated to preserving the ecologically sensitive Oak Ridges Moraine in Ontario, Canada. Formed in 1989, its primary goal has been to lobby the Government of Ontario to create legislation to protect the moraine. (Wikipedia)

The book looks like it will be full of  wonderful photographs. Here are a couple:

This funding website is an interesting spot to visit, with more pictures and info about the funding.

Newsflash!

There was an article about this project in the Toronto Star on Wednesday, Feb.18 and when I checked that day, as mentioned above, the funding was at about 75% of the target $10,000. When I checked on Thursday morning, the target had been exceeded, so I expect that a lot of Toronto Star readers were quick to jump on board (including me!)