Urban Nature

Talking to my uncle yesterday, I told him I was full up with nature. A white lie, that’s for sure, 1) to get me out of an uncomfortable conversation about camping and 2) so I could talk about the odd things that happened to me yesterday.

I live near LeBreton Flats, and though construction is ripping the Flats apart, there are still a lot of hiding places for small animals. On my way to work, I bike through three parking lots on the edge of this big expanse of grass, brush and trees. Coming out between two cars yesterday morning, I had to stop short and hard. There, before me, was a little bunny! Scared out of its wits, a couple hops to the right, a couple forward, four or five to the left, trying to find its way back to the field. I watched a bit, tried to block off the way to the road, smiled with all the other people who stopped to watch the frightened rabbit.

The day passes, I bike home, no animals. Fiddle around in the house, need to get bus tickets. Lock the door, turn and look down the steps to a bloody mess. Entrails. There must be a nest in the eaves of our house, because this is the second time I’ve scraped an exploded pigeon off my front stoop. The first time I screamed. It was tiny, pink, translucent. This one’s eyes were open and it had a strip of feathers along its back, and flight feathers along the edges of its wings.

Now, I am no friend to pigeons. They horrify me with their pestilence and frostbitten, malformed feet. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad when their babies end up dead on my porch.

Anticlimactically, I also saw a raccoon on my way home from ferrying Wendy-O Matik from the airport to venus envy. It just paused, looked at me and ambled off into someone’s backyard.

Yes, a day full of city wildlife. That, of course, is missing the man who passed my front window several times with a garbage can on a dolly. Friend to raccoons, perhaps.