Urban Wildlife
Headline and weather report all in one go! Thank you urban nature news.
We read the news on the walk down to the woods. The sidewalk and the street have a lot to share with us.
The sidewalk tells us about whether or not there will be fresh fallen leaves on the forest floor and if those leaves or the ground will be wet. The gutters along the street tell us if the water will be high in the creek because of rain. If there is frost on weeds growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, then we might even find ice once we get to the park!
I imagine the edges of the street and sidewalk read like urban nature headlines. Big, bold print calls our attention to all the stories happening in the neighborhood. This is especially true of mast years for tree nuts. In the forest or in yards, the nuts fall and spread over the ground, but along the street the BOLD PRINT HEADLINE tells the news — “It’s a mast year!”
This is because rain, wind, and gravity pool the acorns and hickory nuts in tree nut puddles at the edges of the apartment parking lots. In non-mast years there are nuts, but wow! when it is a mast year, these collections are truly noteworthy.
The children get to see what happens in a mast year and how it changes the activity in the urban wildlife scene. We see more rats along the street. Flat rats. I’ll spare you the documentation, but will assure you that the children are fascinated. The rats come along, the more the merrier, for the easy pickings the nut puddles offer, but these rat are up from the creek. They don’t know about the cars and the parking lots. They find out about these the hard way. It’s something to talk about that’s for sure because traffic flow in parking lots need to be understood by both children and urban wildlife.
So last week, we were checking out the progress of the most recent flat rat and suddenly across the street one of our other urban wildlife citizens came on the scene with a flourish and flip of the tail. She put on quite the show for the children. She was the most beautiful cat you have ever seen. Fluffy long hair in grey stripes. Attentive eyes watching the children right back (but also not because she’s a cat). She rolled around, showing her belly, pretended to catch a leaf, and looked up when the children called to her. I have no photo for this — as I told the children, sometimes you just have to be in the moment because it is that amazing.
Then just as suddenly as she appeared, she disappeared! She jumped into the storm drain across the street!
If the streets are a kind of news story or weather report, the storm drains are the things that investigative journalists would be drawn towards as mysteries to untangle and solve. The storm drains along the street we walk on are grand things. The children don’t need to be told to watch their step around them, they can see that there is a great yawning trap there. They nod as I show them the specially sourced signs that tell us that these drains are connected to the Anacostia River and then all the way to the Chesapeake Bay.
When that cat jumped down into that drain everything became crystal clear about those storm drains!
But wait’s there more!
We waited a bit to see if the cat would jump back up, but after a bit we continued down the hill. Forest day was back on in earnest!
Just as we approached the next storm drain, up jumped that cat!
We all stood in amazement as the cat put on ANOTHER show! All the while, the cat had become the best guide. The storm drains are connected. The cat made sure we were all looking and then she jumped back in and the children now knew that the walk down the hill must continue in order to find her at the next drain.
This is the only photo I got of this banner event. The children are ducking down, watching and waiting for that cat.
While I must say this cat was a show stopper we have other guides in our urban wildlife show. That very same week in our play yard, two blue jays were screaming and swooping at one of our broad-winged hawks. The hawk was hunkered down in the beech tree next door.
We were able to watch this long enough to imagine what the blue jays were saying, “Go away, go away!” pecking and swooping, while the hawk responded with shoulders hunched, “I’m not doing anything, leave me alone.” Finally the hawk just had to leave, “Fine, I’m going,” and the children were able to watch that great bird dip off the branch and then pick itself up to fly away. The blue jays went on their screeching way.
All around us there is nature and it’s so easy for the children to get their fill of it with the time we spend outdoors. What a gift!
“The Street” a painting by one of our four-year olds.
