I thought it was thrilling on Monday night to hear, through an open window, a Great-Horned Owl somewhere near our house as I got into bed. Imagine my excitement last night, when, sitting in the family room working at the computer, I heard, through windows closed against the 28 degree F chill, not one, but two owls hooting their hoarse calls over one another. I opened a kitchen window and stood giggling with delight every time they repeated their calls for over fifteen minutes.
It's not the first time I've heard a Great-Horned Owl. That was several years ago. I awoke from a deep sleep in my parents condo guest room in Pittsfield, MA, in the Berkshire mountains. We were there on one of our summer visits. I lay in bed, wide-eyed, straining to hear every note. Yet, one expects to hear wild creatures of the night in the mountains. Here in the suburbs, the presence of wildness is less predictable, more of surprising when it occurs.
Over the last several years, the number of species--both avian and mammal--frequenting our suburban Detroit neighborhood has grown. If you've never been to this area, you may not realize that there is little organic about its layout. Major streets, for the most part, go North-South or East-West, spaced one mile apart. Mostly flat, the edges of the mile-squares they create are trimmed with commercial spaces, professional offices, and other non-residential structures, while the insides of each mile are filled with private housing--subdivisions the locals call them. Lower and moderately-priced housing is typical of most American suburbs. The lots are one quarter- to one third-acre. The houses range from 1000-3000 square feet, including basements. The older subdivisions tend to have more, and more mature, trees than the newer ones. We live in a square mile that was developed in the early 1960s.
Then there are tracts of land, somewhat hillier and more woodsy, where wealthier folks dwell. Their properties and houses are less regular, more amply apportioned and separated from their neighbors by patches of woods that were not disturbed when their houses were built. And many of these property-owners, lately, have been selling parts of their lots for use by people who want to build a new house, or developing part of their own land to sell off. My theory is that, as the habitats birds and mammals have lived in for decades are cut up, cleared out, and built on, they are moving, however reluctantly, to nearby subdivisions that have settled down since the last time they traversed these lands. Brush that didn't exist before has established itself. Trees that were newly planted saplings in the early '60s, when these lands were developed, tower, fully grown now. So the kind of subdivision where I live is the next best thing to where they have been hanging out for the last several decades. The birds have it easy. They can fly across automobile-laden roads. If those on foot make it across two to four lanes of two-way, 40-45 MPH traffic, they add to the growing impression I have that we are living in a mini-wildlife preserve.
During the spring migration last May, I was so impressed by the number of new species I saw on my property that I made a list of all the birds and mammals I had seen in this vicinity--within a mile or two of my house, on my property, or in the skies over my property. By the end of the summer, I had listed over 50 species of birds (several nesting here), four species of squirrels, and several other mammals, including fox and coyote. I suppose, after all, this is their land, and we are mere tenants. When their digs are flooded with and destroyed by development, they retreat to "higher" ground. (I flatter myself!) And with the exception of the woodchucks who feasted on my cucumber, nasturtium, and carrot leaves last summer, I welcome them with pleasure.
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