Saturday, August 18, 2007

Nature Is All Around Us, All You Have To Do Is Take A Look...

...and you will see the natural world always striving to survive. This is true whether you live in a rural setting as does Straight White Guy or in a more urban one as do I. Today, Eric experienced the wonder of some whitetail deer, a doe and twin fawns. You can read about his experience here; it sounds as if it was a good one. It got me to thinking about nature abounding even here on Long Island the eastern doorstep of New York City (heck even in New York City) , but alas there are no deer around where I live.

While I live where there are no deer, though within 35 miles or so they are fairly abundant. Yet, even though I live just 12 miles of so east of the NYC border, natural life abounds here in its own hang on tough way, and so too does it even in NYC. Raccoons are around, opossums seem to flourish, moles, voles, shrews, mice are around, snakes can be found not far away, as to can turtles, lizards, frogs, and toads. Hawks swoop down in my small backyard and grab a bird from near the bird feeders now and then. Gray squirrels abound, especially at my bird feeders. Birds of many other sorts often pay visits to my bird feeders. Plants of so many kinds are around that I don't even know the names of more than a few of them, and there are bugs (not as many as there once were, I guess with all the garden and lawn insecticides in use).

A short drive, maybe 10 miles from my home, brought me to a tidal creek today where I set a minnow trap hoping to catch some dinner for my musk Turtle and Water Snake. The tidal creek runs in and out of a small dammed off pond in a town park. What I believe to have been a great egret, it was huge for an egret, visited there today as I waited for the fish to oblige and fill my trap. A blue clawed crab, with fabulously blue claws, and one of the largest I have ever seen, scuttled into the rocks in deeper water as I approached it for a better look at creek side. When I hauled out my minnow trap, it was shimmering with a good number of banded killifish, what looked like Brook Silversides though these are not reported in this area as far as I am aware, and another small fish as yet unknown to me, maybe a sunfish of some sort.

Yes nature is all around us, even close to and within the megalopolises, and all we have to do is slow down or stop now and again to realize it.

All the best,
Glenn B

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

... amen about slowing down and noticing..... trust me, very few people really do that.... and it is such a great loss....

... like Thornton Wilder wrote about in 'Our Town'..... good stuff, man.... and an excellent post...

Eric

Pen of Jen said...

You know Glenn this is an excellent post. I think that we all need to appreciate this. Sometimes even in this small city, I love to take an opportunity and check out even the ladybugs.

Excellent advice, and truly comforting to do if one heeds it!
Jennifer

Glenn B said...

If it had not been for Straight White Guy , I would not have been so inspired to write this one when I did.

Rita Loca said...

We had a bit of nature in our yard, a snake, we were all so excited to see a snake! we had not stepped out of the house to confront a snake since we left the jungle. It felt... homey!
great post. Made me mile.