By Neal Wooten
They are cutting the trees on both sides of my building by the airport to create parking areas for semi trucks to leave trailers. I didn’t think anything about it until it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen one possum since they started. Possums certainly can’t stay where there are no trees. I’m going to miss those little buggers. But that’s a story we see or read about too often. Progress for humans usually means less habitat for critters.
Years ago, all they could talk about were the disappearing bees. Recently, however, I realized another animal that I see far fewer than I did when I was a kid is birds. Remember those long trails of blackbirds that used to stretch for dozens of miles and take hours to pass over? When they were migrating, you would see those long lines across the sky almost daily. But I can’t remember the last time I saw those.
Redtail hawks used to be very abundant in this area. I can remember driving to Kmart from the mountain every weekday morning to go to work and seeing fifty of them, their white chest feathers shining in the morning sun as they awaited breakfast. That meal came in the form of a mouse or rabbit moving on the ground. Now, when I see a redtail hawk, it’s like finding a four-leaf clover.
Owls are nocturnal and hunt mostly at night, but there were so many on the mountain that you couldn’t help but get a glimpse of one on occasion. And our mountain owls weren’t like the cute little owls in children’s books. Oh no. And they weren’t like the wise old owl checking to see how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie roll pop. Our owls were big and scary and looked like they could carry off a child. But I haven’t seen one in decades.
Every spring and fall, we’d see those long V-formations as wild ducks and wild geese flew north for the summer and south for the winter. That was daily also, usually several times a day. They would be so high you could barely see them. Surely, they still migrate, but I haven’t seen one of those huge V-formations in a coon’s age.
I see fewer cardinals, bluejays, woodpeckers, doves, quail, robins, and even the small wrens that used to travel around in large flocks. I haven’t even seen a snipe lately. Well, I never saw one that night Uncle Doodle left me in the woods with a burlap sack either.
It’s depressing to think about. Let’s face it: life is much more fun with the birds and the bees.
