Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Parking lot Wildlife


I've always been a child of nature.
Thankfully, I was able to spend most of my childhood surrounded by land, ponds, forest, and farms with lots of animals and native wildlife.  I can remember encounters with wildlife as early as 2 years old.  I remember walking through the woods with my grandpa naming trees and animals, it was the most exciting thing to me, and memorable.  This one time in particular, if you know me, you know I have a naturally loud voice and I talk a lot so, I was chitter chattering on and on and my grandpa turned to me and said, "if you don't hush up, your never going to see anything," in the very next second a deer jumped out from a bush in front of us an ran off.  I still remember the look him and I shared from that experience.  All of these memories came flooding to my mind while thinking about this blog.  The point of this blog however, is not my past memories but, of parking lot wildlife.  I still retreat to the outdoors and nature as much as I can, even volunteering at the Wildlife Education and Rehab from time to time but, suburban wildlife has always fascinated me.  The quote "suburbia, the place where they cut down trees then name streets after them," comes to mind.  It's always a sad thing to see new development, knowing that so many organisms will loose their home.  Although, just as we would prevail if something major destroyed everything we knew, so do they.    Not all of them of course but, it's bitter sweet seeing these wild animals and birds make due with what they have.  Another quote comes to mind, "Nature will prevail."  Just off my apartments back patio I can witness, bunnies, many different species of birds including birds of prey, fox, raccoon, and opossum, and no telling what else I haven't seen yet.  What really fascinates me though, are the cutest little killdeer, (a species of sandpiper) birds with their young, scurrying their long little legs so fast through empty parking lots at 5am in the morning.  I only see them really early in the morning but, they are the cutest thing.  They must live in near by retention ponds and bushes.  Just the other morning while driving to my 5:30am yoga class there were massive amounts of killdeer scooting through the parking lot with their sooo cute young, bobbin and weaving away from my car, (of course I would NOT hit them).  Furthermore, I saw two huge tricolored herons just chillin, walking around the parking lot.  This just goes to show that they will survive if their bare necessities are met.  I think it would benefit us greatly to have as many untouched, preserved places where this wildlife can live and thrive.  Even in suburbia, just creating as many spaces as we can for them will help them survive. Hopefully, eventually lead us to understand that they deserve more than that.  It will not only benefit our Earth as a whole but, enrich our communities, and our lives.  So, whether you believe in intelligent creation or not, science proves we are all made from the same stuff, killdeer included...  All I'm saying is that I enjoy those such encounters and I believe we need to share this space we occupy with wildlife better than we are right now if we expect to see things like this in the future.  I support all efforts to create more habitat for wildlife but, we also need to preserve the already matured environments as well.  Why not redevelop areas that are run down and wasting away, while we cut down more trees for more parking lots somewhere else instead? Ok - I'm done or I'll continue forever LOL, - Have a beautiful day - Stop and delight in all that surrounds you!