The Food Chain

by LibbyAtwater | Aug 27, 2018 | Blog

I feel fortunate to live in a hillside neighborhood surrounded by wildlife that provides abundant entertainment and a few challenges.

The rose garden outside our kitchen window offers daily shows in addition to the beautiful blooms that flourish within. It hosts a bird feeder that draws a variety of winged creatures who stop by for a sip of water, a bath, or some bird seed. As I prepare a meal or clean up afterwards, I watch finches, sparrows, blue birds, ring-necked doves, and an assortment of colorful creatures arrive. At least four birds fed this morning, while others lined up in our olive trees, roses, lemon bushes, and along the fence. Some light on the bird bath and timidly sip or dip a foot in the water while others dive in, splashing about and claiming the bath as their own. Certain days I must fill it three or four times.

The birds’ dropped seeds form a feast for an errant squirrel who has begun stopping by. He stuffs his cheeks full of seed hulls, chomps away, and then rests atop a border wall, belly bulging in the morning sun. He doesn’t dally long because red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures often hover nearby.

The bird feeder draws more than birds and squirrels. We’ve moved it three times because it attracted rats, who have always lived in the hills but seem to have multiplied since the Thomas fire drove them out of the surrounding hillsides. Twice I’ve opened the barbecue cover to grill dinner and found a rat staring me in the face. I closed the barbecue, ran inside, turned on the oven, and called the exterminator. The rats have now migrated to our neighbors’ properties, where they’ve become food for the coyotes that have grown hungrier since the fire destroyed their habitat.

We find the rats and coyotes challenging and try to keep them at bay. We know that they lost their homes, as did many of our neighbors. Rabbits were also driven out by the flames. We’d spotted several in the neighborhood camped on front lawns in past months. That’s why we were delighted to see a bunny venture into the rose garden the other morning—at least until she discovered a nearby rose bush and began stripping its leaves off, one by one. Seeking breakfast, the rabbit seemed oblivious to my husband and me, who watched her through the window we’ve dubbed our “window on the world,” because of its great views. This bunny slowly entered the garden, deftly removed the rose leaves, and chewed them as we quietly viewed. She then stood on her hind legs and tore off a large branch, which she discovered she couldn’t take back to her den. We picked up the dead branch a few days later and haven’t seen her since. We did notice that the bush has a lot fewer leaves.

When we live in close proximity to nature, we never know what will appear next. We vote for birds and bunnies.

A Murder of Crows, Part 2

by LibbyAtwater | Jul 10, 2017 | Blog

I peered into our once-thriving orchard that bore fewer avocado trues since the drought began. There I spotted a black object lying in the dirt. At first I thought a plastic trash bag had been tossed over the fence. As I moved closer, I realized that this was not a trash bag but an animal’s carcass. Could it be a neighbor’s cat? It looked too large.

I opened the orchard gate, descending the railroad-tie steps down the steep slope unsure of what I’d find. When I reached the bottom, I waded through the piles of dead leaves and discovered a second black object—the body of a crow. I climbed the hill to where the first carcass lay and realized it was another crow. I could not tell what killed them until I saw punctures on one’s neck and its empty eye sockets.

Poor Heckle and Jeckle, I thought. Yes, they were annoying, but they certainly did not deserve to be killed and left. The sight of them lying there dead upset me. I walked back to the house and told Don what I found.

“Hawks are bird of prey,” he noted. “Sometimes they hunt to eat and other times they just kill.”

Shortly afterwards, our gardening team arrived for weekly maintenance. When you live on an acre of land, you need help. I told them about my discovery, and the gardener’s son stepped forward and said, “I’ll help you bury them. Let me get my shovel.”

Until that morning, I’d never been particularly impressed with this young man. He did not seem to enjoy his work, and I suspected he had been forced into his profession by his parents, who worked alongside him. Together, we went down to the orchard. “Yup, it was definitely a hawk,” he said. “Look at the marks on their necks.” Then he dug two deep holes in the corner of the orchard, and we chatted about his weekend and various things while he labored away. Finally, he carefully lifted each bird into its respective grave. As he covered the graves with dirt, he said, “God be with you,” while I silently said a prayer. That morning I gained new respect for this young man.

Yet I still felt the crows’ deaths were a bad omen, and the thought gnawed at me all day. Finally, I searched for “symbolism of dead crows” on my computer. To my surprise, two answers came up. Dead crows can be messengers of death or messengers of change. I’d experienced enough death, especially during the month of May, to hope for the latter. I chose messengers of change as the meaning I would embrace.

I spent the entire day writing for the first time in months. It felt great to be doing what I loved most after a long hiatus. Perhaps these deaths, as the deaths of many loved ones, had been my inspiration.

Years ago when Don and I ventured to Africa, our tour guide identified the animals we’d see. Then she stated the monikers that defined a group of each particular animal and gave us a list. For example, we saw a pride of lions, a zeal of zebras, a parade of elephants, a thunder of hippopotami, a leap of leopards, a troop of baboons, a tower of giraffes, a cackle of hyenas, and a pot of water buffaloes. But we never saw a murder of crows.

I found one in my own back yard.

A Murder of Crows

by LibbyAtwater | Jun 14, 2017 | Blog

Memorial Day weekend brought two huge crows with their cacophonous cackling to our yard. They’d visited before, but this weekend they remained close to our home, alighting on a nearby utility pole constantly calling to each other. Their noise grew annoying as we worked in the yard, and I wished they would be quiet.

Later that day I discovered them in our bird bath located at the top of our avocado orchard. One sat on the chain link fence looking soaked while the other sat in the bird bath dipping its food into the water. 

“Don, look at these crows in the bird bath. I think Heckle and Jeckle (two cartoon crows from our childhoods) have arrived,” I said to my husband.

“It looks that way,” he said. “They seem to have taken over and scared the smaller birds away.”

Living in the hills of Southern California, I viewed the crows as representatives of the diverse wildlife that calls our neighborhood home. We’ve seen a bobcat, a mountain lion, coyotes, roadrunners, skunks, rabbits, lizards, a variety of birds, hawks, rats, mice, and a number of different snakes. When you live on the edge of wilderness, you learn to coexist with its first inhabitants.

Despite this knowledge, I was startled when I spotted a huge red-tailed hawk swooping over our orchard as I opened the window shade a few days later. I had never seen a hawk so close to our home. I stood at the window transfixed by its aerial aerobics and said, “Don, look at this hawk. It’s magnificent.”

My husband ran into the room to see the large raptor repeatedly circle our property. “That’s unusual,” he remarked. “We don’t often see hawks in the morning and rarely this close to the yard. It’s hunting.”

We both thought nature had given us a great show to start our day and never thought about its prey.

The next morning I discovered the hawk’s true mission. When I made my morning outside rounds of the yard, I peered into our once-thriving orchard that bore fewer avocado trees since the drought began. There I spotted a black object lying in the dirt. At first I thought a plastic trash bag had been tossed over the fence. As I moved closer, I realized that this was not a trash bag but an animal’s carcass. Could it be a neighbor’s cat? It looked too large.

 I opened the gate, descending the railroad-tie steps down the orchard’s steep slope unsure of what I’d find. (to be continued)