I love our town.  I’ve probably mentioned that we chose Winston Salem.  We made a list of what we wanted and then tried to find the place that had as many of those attributes as we could find.   Winston Salem was it.  Nearly thirty years later and we’ve not been disappointed. 

Although a few years ago a major corporation moved it’s headquarters to Atlanta because the CEO’s wife found W-S to be too bucolic, we don’t find it that way at all.  It’s true that we don’t have the huge variety of restaurants, night life, etc that a place like Atlanta has, but neither does it take two hours to get home at 5 pm when you only work across town.  Not knocking Atlanta, you understand.  “Some of our best friends live in Atlanta”.  (No, really, they do). 

But for a city the size of W-S, we have a lot to offer.  For one thing, our neighborhood of Ardmore (I call us Ardmorons) is one of the largest Arts and Crafts neighborhoods in the Southeast.  We’re only a few hours from the mountains or the ocean, without the hassles of either, and only and hour and a half from a major city (Charlotte) and it’s airport.  Plus we have an airport of our own (shared with the other mid-size cities here in the Triad, as it’s called).  We have a symphony and an opera and a couple of world renown schools (Wake Forest University and the  University of NC  School of the Arts) plus a couple of very good smaller schools and community colleges.  And we have our share of restaurants.  We have three India restaurants that I know of (Indian is our favorite).  We once had five, but two were poorly run.  I think we could have supported five. 

But wait, this is a gardening site!   And the title of the page is “Wildlife in the City”.  

 Surprisingly, for a town of almost a quarter of a million people, I see wildlife all the time.   I see deer several times a year.  Recently I saw a fox.  This is IN the city, now, not on the outskirts. 

Our back yard gets regular visits from raccoons.  We’ve had a family of rabbits living in our yard for years.  Last year was the first time they’ve ever done any significant damage, so this year we’re taking a few steps to mitigate the damage.   Once in a while I see an opossum.  And I mentioned last week that we saw a huge hawk sitting on our fence.  

When we kayak on or ride our bikes around Salem Lake, we often see egrets and other large birds and lots of turtles.  

 And the bird population in our yard is huge.  Our eaves at this very moment have nests of Carolina wrens and mourning doves, with many other nests in the bird houses and trees and bushes.  The singing is glorious and can actually get quite noisy. 

 We have our own chipmunk population.  And don’t even get me started on squirrels.  Way too many squirrels.  And remember, our yard is small. 

The main reason we get so much activity in our yard is that we’ve intentionally made it a wildlife sanctuary.  We have no grass.  We avoid the use of chemicals, artificial fertilizers and other things as much as we can (which is pretty much most of the time).  We provide shelter and some food (naturally growing – we don’t put out birdseed) as well as water.  It seems to be working. 

By the way, the remark about birdseed isn’t meant to disparage those who use it. We have nothing against birdseed, but it CAN be a little dangerous.  For one thing, birds are very territorial.  They stake out a piece of ground and stick with it.  That’s part of what the singing is about – “stay away from my territory”.    If you feed the birds, you have to do it all the time.  This is especially true in winter.  If you feed the birds regularly in winter, and then go away for, say, three weeks, and no one refills your feeders…..  Well, your birds might starve.  They were counting on that food supply to get them through the winter.  So if you’re feeding the birds, be constant and consistent about it. 

Something else bad about birdseed is that it attracts unwanted visitors.  If you use the wrong seed, you’ll get birds you don’t want.  Usually of the large aggressive sort.   But with any sort of seed, and considering the way birds eat, you’re likely to get vermin.  As in RATS.   My father in law’s community in Florida doesn’t allow bird feeders.  So be careful with birdseed.

Filed under: Our Garden