Iam a 62-year-old resident, born and raised in this area. I am an avid bird watcher and animal lover. Yes, I too have a birdbath in my yard and a feeder.
Did you know that there is another society within our society out there? I find it grievous that the Township Council would come out against what we need to protect. For this other society has a value and importance to our society.
Upon reading Mr. DePalma’s reaction and [about] his phobic wife, I am concerned for their wellbeing. Sir, if you come from a paved-over area, you know that city folks have rodents, big ones, too. They also have birds.
You, sir, will never know the thrill of having a male cardinal eating seeds a few inches in front of you, with his back turned. This cardinal, I call him Poppy, would let me watch his young while he gathered bugs to feed them. Cardinals are great dads.
You will never, I’m sure, feel that someone is watching while you’re washing dishes, only to turn around and find a blue jay sitting on a kitchen chair, waiting for you to finish and give him a peanut. His name is Jake, one of the Blues Brothers.
My favorites were the Bickersons, two house sparrows who fought over a red piece of yarn. He’d put it in the house, she’d scold and throw it out. This was repeated until she’d had enough of it. She attacked him, and he screamed as he dangled by his wing from her beak.
I also had a little chipmunk that climbed up my pant leg to get a peanut from my hand. Then he sat on my shoe and ate it.
Oh, by the way, I have no rats or mice because I have a resident owl named Hooters. He eats them, as do the four different hawks that occasionally visit the lunch wagon.
In 1960, Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring,” warning us about the effects of our pollution on the environment. We are more devastating than the rodents. We are perhaps environmental “ratzillas.”
This area no longer has hop toads, box turtles, frogs, peepers, salamanders, or garter snakes. All are reptiles and insect eaters.
Over the last four decades, a great number of paved-over city folk have invaded this area, bringing their idea of an idyllic life to the Shore area. Gone are the many vacant lots, woodlands and fields – homes for birds, reptiles and rodents. In their place, we have manicured lawns, grown on beach sand and ancient seabeds in an often arid climate.
To keep these lawns green, we need chemicals, lots and lots of chemicals, some so strong, a small dog can keel over and die. We’ve DDT’d, Chlordaned, Sevin’d and sprayed Malathion on any thing we didn’t like. Then we wonder why kids get autism, etc.
Migratory birds use my feeder. I have five kinds of woodpeckers in my yard at different times: orioles, wood thrushes, brown thrashers, towhees, brown creepers, two kinds of wrens and nuthatches, chickadees, goldfinches, purple finches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, 20 or more kinds of warblers and hummingbirds, juncos and 10 different kinds of sparrows.
No sir, I won’t stop helping these usurped creatures. So get a grip, you paved-over city folk. I suggest Lexapro. It worked for me. Oh, I forgot Ms. Thing. She is an opossum, not a rodent. I feed her, too.
P.S. I’m still laughing about the way you announce your wife’s departure.
June Layton
Brick