As my wife and I have grown older, we’ve also grown more concerned with the impact of the technology we use to the local wildlife that tries to live around our home, from insects on up. As a consequence we’re letting the front yard slowly grow more “wild,” which includes no more harsh mowing or the application of fertilizers and pesticides. We’ve given up the unnatural green and trimmed lawn of the middle class. Instead we let the natural plants grow in the front, and we’re slowly putting in more bushes and small trees. In order to keep the grass from growing too high, I now own and use a push lawn mower. It cleanly cuts the grass, is very quiet, doesn’t use fossil fuel or electricity, and provides me another exercise avenue. This slow “re-wilding” leads to some interesting sightings in our front yard.

My wife and I went out Monday morning and discovered this snake skin hanging out of a hole in a sycamore tree growing in our front yard. This is another example of letting things live to support other organisms. I know we have a number of black snakes around the yard. This sycamore used to grow straight and tall and was a classic shape and height. Over the years it’s been growing in our yard it’s lived through a number of hurricanes as well as quite a few major thunderstorms. The top of this tree was taken out a decade ago with a direct lightning strike. Rather than have the sycamore taken down we decided to let it stay. It still leafs up every spring. It’s also become home to a number of birds, one of which appears to have made a nest in the hollow bole in the tree. This is also the start of mating season, so some bird flew up into this bole with this snake skin which had been shed earlier by one of the resident black snakes. I can only surmise that when we came out front that morning we startled whatever bird was trying to incorporate this snake skin into its nest. As a consequence it hung there out of that hole long enough for me to take a few snapshots. The snake skin was gone the next morning, I assume having been pulled up to finally be incorporated into a nest up in that tree bole.

In the past I might have propped a ladder against the trunk and then gone up to peek inside. But now I’ll leave well enough alone. Let whatever is making its home up there do so without my interference. Hopefully if any new life comes to pass up there I’ll see it emerge. Then perhaps I can take some photographs of the event. But if I never see anything, I’m thrilled to have at least seen this happen.