Strange Urban Ecology

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just now, in the men's bathroom where I work (on the 26th floor of a lower Manhattan high-rise), I saw a tiny ant crawling along the tiles, which prompts this thread. Relate your stories of seeing/experiencing animals/insects/plants in cities that seem out of place in that environment. My example isn't too strange for like a 3 or 4-story apartment building, but seeing it on the top floor of this building is kinda strange.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, there are some places with gravel roofs where you go onto the roof and there's a vertiable forest of weird plants growing.

― Whiskeytown Littlecock (ex machina), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:49 (twenty-one years ago)

funny you should say that because tomorrow my ladyfriend's playing a show in W'burg that has gigantic trees on it and a koi pond. But that's a man-made environment.

Last year, walking in Central Park by the Met, there was this awesome red-tailed hawk chilling out on a treebranch by the path.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the urban foxes that populate Old Street. They're all over London, but they're weirdest of all when seen trotting casually down the middle of Old Street. (New Yorkers - think of a fox trotting casually down, say, Houston or Canal St)

― Super-Masonic Black Hole (kate), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

"in the men's bathroom where I work "

sorry...

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

when our old gas fire was removed, we discovered that the fireplace behind it was still full of soot from when it was a coal fire. In amongst the soot was a bird's skeleton. The builder told us that he quite often finds complete frog skeletons in fireplaces from when frogs are caught by birds who carry them away in their beaks to eat, but subsequently drop them down a chimney they perch on.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:53 (twenty-one years ago)

When I lived in New Delhi, there were peacocks that lived in a wooded area near our house. We could hear them every morning, making this eerie crying-baby sound. We would also occasionally have monkeys on our walled-in roof, and these hawks that would fly overhead and would, once in a while, swoop down threateningly at people (or our cat) who were on our roof.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Not exactly urban, but the town named after one of my great-grandfathers (Coombs, Vancouver) is famous for having goats on the roof: http://www.oldcountrymarket.com/history.html

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"Rooftop ecology" in Detroit:

http://www.freep.com/news/locway/journ15_20010515.htm

Some of the plant life is bush-like saplings; a few trees reach two stories.

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:56 (twenty-one years ago)

you get goats that climb and perch in trees in morocco innit? it's such a weird sight.

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:57 (twenty-one years ago)

also last night at the Cecil Taylor show at Castle Clinton in Battery Park, during the opening minutes of Cecil's set, a squirrel somehow got stuck in the Castle and was running around the aisles through the audience. Maybe not so weird since it was in a park, but imagine a big concrete space with about 600 people and white folding chairs with a stage in front. So yeah, l'il guy was freaked, ran through some jazzbo's legs (he didn't notice) and up the aisle to the stage, up the side and out of the Castle. Very cool (and somehow appropriate to Cecil's sound).

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:59 (twenty-one years ago)

There was a pretty major ant attack in the Ontario Airport terminal.

Also, don't forget NYC's peregrine falcons.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 30 July 2004 15:02 (twenty-one years ago)

that's really close to where I work.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 30 July 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't forget San Francisco's peregrine falcons. I work on the 46th floor of a building here and I see them swooping about from time to time.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 30 July 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

WATERSNAKES IN ROCHESTER NU YORK

― Whiskeytown Littlecock (ex machina), Friday, 30 July 2004 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

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