As an urban dweller for most of my life, I rarely thought about what wildlife might live nearby the various homes where I was living.
When I was a child, my sister discovered an opossum in our back garden in Santa Monica, California. My parents promptly caught it (I have no idea how!), and deposited it into a cardboard box which they placed in the car's trunk. The family tumbled into the car. When we arrived at the police station, the box was empty. The frightened animal had eaten through the cardboard and was hiding in the recesses of the trunk. I recall being awestruck that such a strange creature even existed, much less lived so close by.
Many more creatures live nearby my home in El Cerrito, California than did nearby my childhood home in Santa Monica. Mammals that I've seen in El Cerrito include squirrel, deer, racoon, skunk, rats, feral cats, and yes, opossum. One has to admire all these creatures for surviving in a city environment where they raise their young and every day must find adequate food and water, locate a safe place to sleep, and stay clear of predators, of human beings and of our automobiles.
And there are the other wild creatures: the birds, including Anna's hummingbirds, mourning doves, hawks, sea gulls, thrushes, bats, owls and other birds I am unable to identify. And there are the insects, including praying mantises, no end of spiders, snails, lady bugs, termites, honey bees, California native bees, ants, fleas, hornets, moths and more.
All around, life is being danced not only by human beings.
Abraham Lincoln offers this: An ant's life is to it as sweet as ours is to us.
