Quite some time ago I wrote an unaffectionate bit about a manmade water buffer constructed between an industrial zone and a big strand of wilderness between it and a residential area. Seemed like a waste of effort. Pavement or some already present (and usually already polluted) water system is the buffer you will see used most often at just about any industrial park's boundary.
So far I could not have been more wrong. The water buffer, at first completely lacking in vegetation, has slowly grown over with alder, grasses and other plant species we know lovingly as weeds. These plants have produced the cover needed for birds to move in. Ducks mostly.
The young trees have also proven tempting to our saw-toothed Canadian icon the beaver. I have yet to spot one but the stumps the beaver has left behind and the small trees in the water attest to their presence. The Hammer can smell their big rodent stink and is curious as to just what the stink looks like in the flesh.
Today we saw two more Canadian icons in the water. Two loons, resting and feeding along their migratory route I imagine. Waiting, like us, for our interior fishing holes to thaw out.
The ducks, beaver and loons join three other species who have long been at home in the area: bear, cougar and deer - all within a home run's distance of the highway that links my fat cat land's two coasts.
It would seem as if it is possible to marry our industrial culture to the wild one we have inserted ourself into if we are willing to try hard enough to do so and be persistent about it.
My dog and I like it there.
1 comment:
It's also highly reassuring that despite all we do to mess things up, the creatures and plants adapt and find their place. They're going to outlast and outpace us, to paraphrase the Mountain Goat's Best Ever Death Mental Band our of Denton. (Which I recommend, either in the original or here - http://tinyurl.com/7xrowae )
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