I live at the confluence of a busy two lane highway and a dead-end country road in a house that was once an early 18th-century tavern and stagecoach stop on the way from Philadelphia to Cape May. The busy road is a major artery on the bay side of our peninsula, and is the backcountry alternative to the Garden State Parkway.
Cape May County is listed amongst some of the most difficult places in the country to evacuate in a hurry because there are only two roads leading in and out of it, and while our offseason numbers are rather small at under 100k, it would still be a problem if we all needed to leave at once. In season, our population swells to nearly 800k, which is a near impossible task to evacuate. The point is, I live on a major thoroughfare that has been in use for centuries, and is busiest in the summer months.
But just a hundred yards or so up my dead end street is raw country and vibrant marsh. There are Pygmy goats and Scottish highland cows. Eagles, vultures, owls, gulls, egrets, and herons. Mockingbirds and cardinals, turtles and lizards, coyotes, opossum, raccoons, and rabbits fill the empty spaces.
There is a groundhog that lives nearby and uses our shed as a way station, to and from what I do not know. There is a family of Carolina wrens in the window box on the back deck and a nest of cardinals in the Cherry Laurel. Come fall, bats will visit at dusk and swoop around the yard eating bugs with aerial precision. Where are the bats the rest of the year? I have no idea.
Yesterday, I was sitting in the sun in the yard and little clouds of tiny insects flew in little cyclones over various parts of the yard. I wondered if each was its own ecosystem or whether one bug could join another group without missing a beat. Would they recognize it as an outsider, or as one of their own, or even at all? Soon I realized these hatchlings had attracted the attention of a team of dragonflies who would perch on the clothesline and periodically dive bomb the whole affair without seeming to disturb the procession. It was like watching a battle taking place in the valley below as you picnicked up on a hill at a safe distance.
Most days I take a walk down my street until the road runs out of macadam and turns into a sandy path in to the marsh. We used to be able to drive all the way out to one of the tidal channels where you could see the remnants of the old shipbuilding yards. But the mosquito commission put up a no trespassing sign and later allowed a natural bridge to wash out and remain so, which means you can no longer drive out there. This is where my walks end, but it is also the portal to the wild blue yonder.
Every time I reach the end of the road, there are invariably a half dozen or more fiddler crabs scampering about, fleeing my presence and retreating to the relative safety of a brackish mud puddle. The males have one enormous claw, used to attract females and fight off male challengers. The females have two small claws, used to gather food. Local fisherman like to capture them and use them for live bait, which I increasingly find rather barbaric. Using a live animal as bait simply disturbs me more than it used to. I’m not even a fan of using worms. I don’t have a problem killing and eating animals, but I don’t see the need in causing suffering to another creature simply to satisfy a hobby.
When I walk in the mornings, I’m more likely to see a wider variety of creatures milling about from birds and turtles to rabbits and crabs. If you’re up early enough, you cross paths with a great many living things. I have seen turtles laying eggs by the side of the road as well as those who have met their maker at the hand of a large automobile.
Surprisingly, I don’t see many snakes, either dead or alive, but I have had to pull them out of the chicken coop occasionally, where they like to eat the eggs. We can’t have that. There’s quite a bit that is startling when you open the door to the chicken coop only to find a six foot rat snake with an egg in its mouth staring back at you. I’m not deathly afraid of snakes like my wife is, but I generally try to give them their space. I draw the line at stealing eggs, or breaching the confines of our living quarters. I will turn a blind eye to living in the cellar because snakes eats mice, but don’t cross the threshold.
Yesterday, I spotted a baby snapping turtle on the road, not more than a few inches long in total. It was looked eerily as if it was made from the same stuff as the road, as if it were made of ancient macadam. It didn’t move as I approached or seem to react in any way as I snapped a few photos. It remained there on the road, not a safe space for turtles, but I wasn’t about to grab even a baby snapper, for fear of having it latch onto me.
The same day I spotted something I don’t usually see, which was several turkey vultures hanging out on the roofline of my neighbor’s house. They’re majestic creatures in the air, but decidedly creepy up close, with their naked heads and enormous beaks. The neighbor’s house is much to close to my house, for my liking, for what’s to say they won’t decide my house is also a convenient place to rest. They eat rotten flesh and their excrement smells precisely what you might expect to come from that.
No one needs that.
