Unseen Madison

We promise we’re not obsessed with Madison’s frozen lakes. This week’s photo challenge is straightforward—with a twist. What was the name of this Madison lake before its current name? Click the photo to enlarge, and see the clue you need. Send an answer by next Monday (how to play photo challenge).

The last two challenges have featured beavers (#2) and coyotes (#3), animals not usually considered urban. Lake Wingra has a special advantage for wildlife: the 1,200-acre UW arboretum. The outlines of Wingra marsh haven’t changed in 80 years.

Coyotes are so adaptable they often live more successfully in cities than rural areas. Chicago, for example, has a coyote population around 2,000. Nobody knows Madison’s population, but coyotes are in the news recently for migrating to the city and preying on pets. The great irony is that hating the coyote (and fearing its wolf cousin), we spent a couple centuries trying to destroy them. Now coyotes are moving in with us.

This entry was posted on February 16, 2010 at 5:24 pm and is filed under photo of the week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.