"Our tree": the 'epilog'

By Peter A. Morris

All it took was thirty minutes for the house to come down, then before you could say tree, "Our Tree" was down and all the other variety and sizes of trees including the apple and plum and multitude of plants and bushes ,very soon, all that is left is a bare, lifeless, lot.

Oh! sure, the new houses will be smart and modern and there will be five where there once was one, but what happens to all the ghosts that lived there? Will they go off and find another place to haunt? Kind of like what is happening in all the wars going on around the world at this very time.

But the trees, now that’s a different story, this was ‘home’ and ‘hangout’ to a great variety of our feathered friends and critters. I have written many times of the many kinds of wildlife that used this area for nesting and food. Finches, warblers, robins, especially the one that sang his heart out from the very top branch sometimes from dawn to dusk and you could hear him from blocks away!

The hummingbirds that often flew from the feeder on our deck straight into the branches of that tree and worked their mechanical way through the branches looking for bugs and flies, not even flinching when the red-tailed hawk swooped in to ‘take five’.

A lot of hummingbirds also nested in the tree, so tiny, like themselves, the nests looked a tennis ball tucked into a branch almost invisible.

Also impressive was the Fall when the young flickers, those spectacular woodpeckers, would gather together in large groups before heading off in their different directions. I counted as many as sixty four last year. This year I saw a single bird calling mournfully from a spot where ‘our tree’ used to be.

The family of raccoons that would spend time fighting and playing and generally doing ‘family stuff,’ some of them climbing the lower branches to explore, much to the chagrin of many of the birds who would often chase them down!

We have a tiny fountain among the flowers on our deck and were surprised when the odd sparrow would drop in to quench its thirst. It wasn’t long before we had a steady stream of them and their wayward cousins, the ‘rosy sparrows’ and at times would sneak a sip at the hummingbird feeder on their way out.

It’s yet another oasis disappeared from Victoria, one of the very things that gives the City its beauty, taken away, the havens for birds and animals destroyed to be replaced by yet more buildings and more people. I guess this is progress, but I have seen Cities like this, and moved away from them.