Last night makes me wonder whether it is a good idea to make yards wildlife friend
Betsy R
About 8:30 pm, shortly after completing David Hill’s wonderful webinar, police helicopters were using spotlights to strafe Congress Park in Denver, which sits behind my house. I heard a large crash into a transom, and an owl tumbled down to my patio. I have very few lights on, to limit confusion to migrating birds, but Congress Park must have been a hellhole for them due to the police activity. Luckily, the owl recovered and flew off, but I noticed a dark stain where it had fallen. I screwed up my courage to go outside despite continued helicopter presence, and found that the dark stain to be a dead hermit thrush and, 5 feet away, half a young rabbit. Can't positively reconstruct what happened, but the owl and the thrush--and perhaps the rabbit, too, had obviously been disoriented by the helicopters.
I am disheartened to realize our city is no longer safe for wildlife, as it grows increasingly unsafe for people.