My previous community garden plot was adjacent to a prairie restoration field, with a small forest and lake nearby. As you can imagine, humans were not the only creatures to inhabit this space. Here are some fellows I got to know over the years. Some I really miss, and some not so much - I think you'll be able to tell which is which!
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| Sandhill cranes |
A pair of sandhill cranes nested on the lakeshore every summer. They took a stroll in the field every afternoon. I would say hi to them from my plot as I worked in the garden. Once as I was bent over weeding, they flew right over me, so close they almost touched me. I felt a sudden wind rushing over me and stood up, only to be confronted with a crane rear-end in the air in front of my face!
Occasionally they would sneak through the gardens in search of a tasty tidbit. Sandhill cranes are supposed to be rather shy, but this pair seemed quite unconcerned at the close presence of humans.
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| Sandhill cranes with chick |
Sandhill cranes have one chick per year. Here they are showing this year's baby around the neighborhood.
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| Ground squirrel watching me: "Plant some more of those peas, lady! We like 'em!" |
Here are two more friends I met on the plains. Both are small, tailless, and really like to eat. Ground squirrels would pop cheerfully out of their tunnels and stare intently as I surveyed the damage they had done. They would mostly just eat vegetables reachable from the ground, but I've also seen one climb a pea fence to get to the peas on top. They would always come to watch me work - many little heads in a circle around me, thinking: ooh, next we are going to eat THAT!
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| Vole peeping from his hidey-hole |
Voles tunnel underground and are very shy. They eat the roots of plants away to nothing from underground. Usually all I saw of the voles themselves was a gray-brown streak as they scurried away if I disturbed the pile of mulch they had been hiding in. But they left behind plenty of mementos...
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| Rodent damage on 'Tetsukaboto' winter squash |
I'm not sure who was at this feast - perhaps they had a giant rodent party? I can just see them, sucking the juice from some fermented tomatoes and shouting "Gardens RUUUULE!" So that you don't feel too bad for me, I would like to say here that I harvested a bounty of vegetables from this garden. Losses to rodent damage really never exceeded 10 or 15%. I just looked on it as the local rodent tax - not a bad rate, compared to some other tax codes I know!
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| Red-tailed hawk |
Fortunately for gardeners, where there are rodents, there are predators. I find these large hawks somewhat terrifying (they always seemed to be sizing me up - could we eat her? she does look kinda wimpy...), but I know deep in my heart that they are good for my garden so I try to like them. Also, they are strikingly beautiful. But I still don't want to pet them.
My current garden is in more of a suburban-y landscape, and the visitors tend more toward the conventional marauding bunnies, chipmunks, and bird-seed fattened gray squirrels. I see cranes flying far overhead now, but we still receive plenty of visits from these guys:
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| Hawk with bunny fluff on my neighbor's lawn |
