Woodbridge Nature

Nature is resilient. It adapts. That's the main reason why environmental issues aren't at the forefront of my worries. Yes, we should be good stewards. But Nature rules its own sphere.

Over the years in Woodbridge, my local Detroit neighborhood, I've seen wildlife come back in abundance. I've observed pheasants, hawks, rabbit, beavers, and opossum. Feral cats are everywhere; there aren't near the rats there once were, and perhaps that's why. 

In the last year there have been two deer sighted, one right by the old barn. And this very day while on my morning constitutional, I saw a wild turkey. No, not an empty bottle of the famous rotgut. A wild turkey, with a baby in tow. 

Nature rebounds, it answers all challenges. My own Detroit environs prove it.

Fancy meeting you

I know that I've spoken about the wildlife in Woodbridge, the part of Detroit where I live. Hawks, rabbits, pheasants, opossums and others I'm sure all inhabit the area. Yesterday I had one particular animal introduce himself to me.

While standing by a work bench doing whatever, work I suppose, I caught a glimpse of something waddling under the gate which blocks our front door. The gate is there to keep someone from sneaking up on us and has to be opened from the inside. It only goes down to about ten inches of the floor. Anyway, I caught sight of the animal and turned to look, expecting it to be a cat as there are quite a few strays around here.

It was a beaver. I'd seen them before here in Woodbridge but I had never had one stop by to say hello. It shuffled in a few feet before noticing me. It stopped and looked me in the eye and, I swear, appeared to nod its head at me. "Hullo guv'nor," it seemed to say. Yes, with a Cockney accent too.

All right, maybe it wasn't quite like that. But it did look up at me, decide that perhaps he had stumbled where he should not have, and skittered back out under the gate. "Huh, a beaver," I thought, and went back to work.

Woodbridge wildlife

Nature is resilient. That's one of the reasons that I'm not all that concerned about global warming/climate change/nuclear winter or whatever it's now being called. Nature will rebound; it will adapt. I need look no further than my neighborhood, Woodbridge in Detroit, to see that's true.

Over the years we've seen pheasant, rabbits, and raccoons living vibrantly nearby. And along with them come the predators. I recall watching a hawk land upon the top of a utility pole, it's wingspan at least five feet, the large bird honestly majestic as it settled gently on its perch. It looked down at me like, yeah, I could take you. If I wanted to. I'm glad it did not want.

But recently an unexpected denizen has taken up in our area. Three times recently, right outside the Shop, my humble workplace, I've seen a beaver. I have no idea where it came from, although there is a larger block nearby which appears to have turned to swamp or wetland. I presume it comes from there.

If such a variety of wildlife can adapt to a central city, I'm not too worried about the world as a whole.