Nature Disturbed?

[This one is somewhat "Old Farmers Almanac"-esque (if that's a term), although I don't live in New England. Still, I think it has that kind of feeling to it.]

Over the last month or so, there's been a lot of subdivision building going on in our neighbourhood. Most recently, an open field has been torn up and a strip mall started. While I'm not necessarily in favour of all this activity - I think our town could survive without both the mall and the hundred or so houses - it has given us a bit of an opportunity.

I've noticed that the number and variety of birds in the backyard has increased since the construction kicked into high gear. I told Laurie that it's probably a result of the changes to the birds' habitat. I really hadn't given it much thought beyond that, though. They're adaptable and, if they find this area too inhospitable, they'll move somewhere else.

In any case, tonight, while having coffee on the deck, I noticed that the birds seemed agitated. Since our cat was in the house, I knew he wasn't the cause. The gold finches had fled to a nearby larch and were chirping for all they were worth. Even the starlings and the morning doves had left the ground and the feeders, and were sitting on the fence making a racket. The object of all this attention seemed to be the lilac by the shed. After about five minutes of noise, everything went deathly quiet. It was like the proverbial calm before the storm.

Well, we got a storm, all right. A red hawk burst from the lilac and flew to the fence. The larch, and anything else that harboured smaller birds, emptied. The hawk sat there, surveying the yard with what appeared to be disdain, although I imagine he was pretty upset at not finding any easy prey. He must have been on that fence for a good minute or so, glaring at everything, before he finally took flight. He was probably grumbling to himself about the hard life of a predator.

I have to wonder whether he was attracted to suburbia because his habitat, too, had been disturbed, or whether he was just following his food supply. Hawks are native to this area, and I've seen them gliding majestically through the air from time to time, but I've never seen one this close. He wasn't the largest of his kind, but he was clearly top of the heap in the yard tonight. Even Laurie and I wouldn't have chanced ticking him off.

That was pretty exciting - for me, at any rate, although you may have seen so many that one more hawk would be boring. Still, it was a bit sad, because I don't believe he would have been here had we left the woods and fields alone.

After he left, there was a lull for a bit. Laurie and I drank our coffee, and I lit my pipe. A few finches and sparrows came back, and the local squirrel put in an appearance. He's been here for years now, competing with the birds for seeds in the feeders, so there wasn't anything special there. We had just about concluded that the evening's events were over.

Fortunately, nature always has a trick or two to jolt us out of our complacency. Just as we had decided it was time to go in, Laurie saw something brown by what was supposed to be the vegetable garden (really, it's just weeds with a row of peas and some canna lilies). She nudged me in the ribs and whispered "A bunny!"

Sure enough, there she was. She couldn't have been very old; at least, she wasn't very big. She sat in the weeds, nibbling on some yellow flowers there, looking as if this was exactly where she belonged. For all I cared, she could eat the weeds until the cows came home, and I figured that the canna lilies were tough enough to be safe, but the peas were right there, too, and they practically had "munch me" written on them. I went up to shoo her away from our precious row of peas.

My experience of rabbits - at least, wild ones - is that they're extremely skittish. I figured that I'd get within twenty feet of her and she would turn tail and hop back under the fence. As I approached, she looked up, ears and whiskers quivering. She turned sideways, to get a better look at me. So far, this is what I had expected. Surprise! She went back to her flowers. It wasn't until I was five feet away from her that she made for the fence.

I headed back to the deck, having done my duty and saved the peas for another day. That rabbit must have been a student of Dale Carnegie, though, because I had no sooner sat back down on the swing, when she came out again - going after more flowers.

We played this game a few times - I'd walk up to her and, when I got close enough, she'd hop off. Then, when I was far enough away, she'd come back. Finally, I decided to live and let live. She wasn't likely to do any real damage to the garden, unless she came back with fifteen or twenty friends. And, no matter how much her habitat had changed, that wasn't very likely.

So I sat down. She came out and regarded me, the length of the yard between us. I sipped my coffee and smoked my pipe. Laurie had a cookie. I guess we were pretty interesting, because that little rabbit crossed the entire yard and came up to within ten feet of the deck. There's another garden there - it's where most of the bird feeders are - and that may have been part of the attraction, but it wasn't everything. She sat there, looking at us, tasting some of the flowers, and looking at us again. Far from being afraid, she seemed to have a friendly interest in us. Finally, she went back to the fence and we went inside.

I have to say that all of this has impressed me with the adaptability of wild animals. Here we've disturbed their homes, and they just seem to be able to adjust to it. Have we made that great an impression on nature? Or have we, in our clumsy way, re-integrated ourselves with it? I haven't got any answers, but I am glad to have gotten the opportunity to share my home with these creatures. I'll be glad to see them all again!