This weekend promises to be a dreary, rainy weekend here. The perfect weekend to curl up on the sofa with a book and a pot of tea. Should this sound inviting, I will go so far as to recommend a book to read. Crow Planet by Lyanda Lynn Haupt.
Lyanda lives in Seattle with her husband and young daughter. Her vast knowledge of birds stems from working at Seattle Audubon, the Fish and Wildlife Service (researching seabirds) and working in raptor rehabilitation (She identified the hawk in my backyard as an juvenile Coopers hawk). Somehow Lyanda (or maybe her husband) found my blog and asked if I would like a review copy of her book.
Have you ever had a friend invite you to hear his/her band, or go see their art exhibition? I felt the same way while waiting for Lyanda’s book to arrive. Nervous and thinking, “God I hope it’s good, because what will I say if it stinks?” I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the package and saw the beautiful cover art by Daniel Cautrell. A mix of the lovely and the slightly creepy that totally appeals to my aesthetic. I also thoroughly enjoyed the book. Lyanda takes her reader on her journey to study urban wildlife (the crow in particular) as her way to connect to “every day” nature. The mix of her personal explorations, scientific research and folklore meld beautifully together.
Along the way I learned a lot about crows. I won’t spoil the book, but I will share one piece of learned crow wisdom…Don’t piss a crow off. They recognize individual faces and hold a grudge!
Anyway, I recommend the book. It’s a really thought provoking read. I also recommend visiting Lyanda’s blog The Tangled Nest. I am ready to share my copy with a reader (in the US). Please write your favorite urban/suburban wildlife encounter in my comments section and I will randomly choose someone on Wed. 3/17 to receive the book. Right now my favorite encounter was the hawk munching on the pigeon in my backyard. One less pigeon in the world!!
If you want to read a much more in-depth review of Crow Planet, please click here to see the LA Times review.
Have a great weekend, drink some tea and stay dry!
Oh, I have wanted to read this book for weeks but the wait at the public library is so long! I hope I win.
My favorite urban wildlife encounter was last summer. Walking through my neighborhood, I passed a thicket of (invasive) blackberries, and saw a smallish deer with fuzzy antlers munching on the blackberries. This is a pretty common sight in my ‘hood, even though I live less than a mile from downtown, but the best part was that there was a fat neighborhood cat hanging out with the young buck, like they were both pausing for a snack in the afternoon and having a little chat to catch up. Best tableau of my life! I will carry that image with me forever.
I’ve got lots of urban animal stories, having grown up in the city with parents who were very tolerant of pets. The most surprising was the time a 2′ long snake appeared from underneath a cement planter by my front door while I was watering the plants. I caught it and gave it to one of the teachers at Alexis’ school.
We found a quail egg at our riding stable. I was sure it wouldn’t hatch, but it did, and we kept the chick, whom we named Pearl, for some months. Eventually, she decided to join a local covey. The full story is in my book, How to Raise Poultry.
Living in New Orleans, we have lots of wildlife encounters (like lizards in the bathroom) but the hands down best is the alligator that lives in the park near out house. I occasionally see him sunning himself on a log with the turtles, who serve as his early warning system whenever the zookeepers attempt to capture him.
When we still lived in Brooklyn, we used to go to the “boat park,” as Q called it, to play. One day we set our stuff down as usual and followed Q over to the slide. From that distance, we saw a squirrel approach our diaper bag sitting in the stroller. We laughed as it started climbing up the stroller and onto the bag. Then we watched in horror as it appeared to be attacking the bag vigorously. We yelled. We shouted. We stomped. It was undeterred. I wondered vaguely if the squirrel had rabies. Finally, I ran over there like an insane woman, and it fled. We discovered that it had gnawed a large hole through the canvas bag, apparently to get at the cheerios that we had brought in a *sealed* plastic container buried inside the bag. I had had no idea that squirrels’ powers of smell could be so strong. Not to mention their level of perseverance!!! The true nature of squirrels was revealed to me that day, for better or for worse…
In hindsight, I should tell of “my” chickens. I grew up in a 4-room tenement apartment in Manhattan. One afternoon, on my way out to play I heard peeps coming from one of the dark hallways; someone had abandoned a couple of no-longer-cute chicks. We raised these chicks in our oven (how ironic is that?) to keep them safe from the rats. They went upstate when the rooster started crowing and to this day I don’t know whether they were adopted or eaten since live poultry had been brought home for dinner in the past.
The Suburban wildlife story I have doesn’t have a happy ending. In fact, it doesn’t have much of a happy begining or middle either.
A bunny made her nest smack in the middle of my front yard last Spring. She had five babies. My husband discovered it when he nearly mowed it over with the lawn mower. When I called the local wildlife federation to ask what I should do I got a recodering explaining that doing nothing is best. When I discovered my cat snacking on the bunny nest (now we are down to 4 babies) I covered the nest with a laundry basket. I would remove the basket at night after we had all turned in. On the 3rd day I went to put the basket back on the nest in the morning and they were all gone. I balled my eyes out till mid afternoon.
Amy from Westmont IL.
I am always looking for a good read! And I love one that is recommended even better.
My favorite encounter was when I chanced upon a snake. The story is better told by my dad who says that I was happily running along down a hill and at the bottom of the hill there was a snake sitting in a little tree. The snake pulled back and hissed and smiled turned upside down and without hesitation turned around and ran right back up the hill!! No screaming, just all happened so matter of fact.
Thanks for the giveaway!!
My favorite urban wildlife encounter is not nearly so thrilling as many of the comments here, but here goes. In the backyard of our apartment building several years ago, my husband and I saw two squirrels fighting over a slice of cheese pizza. It was an entire slice! Don’t you think they could have split it? But no, one squirrel won out and carried it triumphantly away. A real New York attitude.
I think that’s a really funny NY story Kate! Rude NY squirrels.
Around here, you know it’s spring when you see squirrels running down the sidewalk with oranges in their mouths. It’s like seeing a person trying to carry a yoga ball in their mouth. The scale is hilarious.