Urban wildlife

 

My cousin Bob suggested leaving some carrots near the pile of branches at the back of the garden, maybe the rabbit would show up and we'd see if this was his home. And that is what happened, the rabbit appeared and now he sits in front of his home. The days are getting longer, over an hour longer since early January, and spring seems to be on its way. This has been the coldest and snowiest winter that I can remember, everyday it seems to be -12 C but "feels like" (with the wind chill) -22 C. We'll all be glad when this winter is over. We wait and wait and then we have a single mild day and think we've turned the corner but we haven't, it's -9 C right now (on February 21st) and we had more snow last night. Oh well, I am enjoying seeing the rabbit and leaving him a few pieces of carrot everyday. It's a small reprieve from the relentless and unpleasant winter we're having. But the rabbit is thriving, it's like the country out there even though we live in the city, less than twenty minutes from the downtown; there is a considerable amount of green space in parts of the city, not just parks but people's backyards. When I was growing up here you'd never see any urban wildlife, now we share our environment with rabbits, racoons, skunks, groundhogs, the ubiquitous squirrels, many different types of birds but notably cardinals who I hear singing every morning, and chickadees. There are fewer insects, we are destroying monarch butterflies and other insects. Most of what used to be nature, abandoned farmers' fields, they have all been built on and so we're all in this together, urban wildlife has had to move into the urban sprawl that is city if they want to survive. As Joni Mitchell sang, “We’ve paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” That is exactly what we have done. Above are some photographs and a 13 second video of the rabbit. 

Home of the rabbit

I assumed the rabbit lived in one of the backyards adjacent to ours. If you look at our street, or most other streets around here, you'll see people's homes and in front of the homes there is a sidewalk on both sides of the street and an asphalt road running between the sidewalks (I am being simplistic but I want to make a point). It seems to be relentless city but there are backyards behind each of the houses, there are two backyards adjacent to each other; on some blocks this land is taken up with a lane (the lanes of NDG are a great place to take a walk) and some backyards have flower or vegetable gardens, some are just grass, some have a swimming pool, and most aren't used much. So, the rabbit and other urban wildlife have a lot of land to enjoy and a lot of places to live and places where food can be found. And then, looking at our backyard, my Canadian Cottage Garden, I saw the rabbits' footprints, his trail, and it led from where I leave carrots for him to a pile of branches and weeds, I left these in a pile at the rear of the garden not wanting to bag and discard this stuff, but also wanting to add to the diversity of what grows and what is present in the garden. There are flowers and bushes and there is a growing wild space, planned by me last summer, and part of this is a pile of green vegetation. Now I see the rabbit probably lives in this pile of vegetation, people say rabbits live underground, perhaps under the vegetation. Anyhow, I'm happy with his presence and I don't plan on growing vegetables, just flowers and hostas, hydrangeas, and so on, nothing he'll want to eat. 

Here are photographs, taken from the second floor bedroom window of our home, of the backyard in winter with the rabbit's path from where I leave carrots for him to where he possibly lives.

                    

Where the rabbit lives.

Where carrots are left for the rabbit.

The rabbits' home?

The rabbit's ears are burning, he knows someone is talking about him... 

Someone phoned yesterday, the first thing they asked was "how's the rabbit?"

I am now eating carrots and they're pretty good, not much taste but good.

Yesterday, around 6 p.m., I looked outside and there was the rabbit eating his carrots; he's really just a little guy. When he finished he ran off to a neighbour's backyard.

Note: Top photos were taken on 13 February 2026; other, bottom photos, taken in January 2026.

Rabbit Returned

The days are getting longer by about a minute a day, so when we get home around 4:30 p.m. it is still a little bright outside, it isn't dark as it was on Christmas Day. Anyhow, we arrive home and I go outside and leave a carrot, cut into pieces, for the rabbit. Yesterday I noticed the rabbit is leaving little gifts, rabbit poops, where I leave the carrot, and the rabbit gave me a good laugh over this. I am not certain he even liked carrots when I first left them for him, but now he visits everyday for his carrot snack. Yesterday, he arrived within minutes of my leaving his snack; after I left his carrot beside the bird bath, he appeared as though he had been waiting for me to leave the carrot and go away. This rabbit brings me a lot of happiness, now we both stand by the window looking outside at the rabbit as he eats the carrots that are left for him. Video online 04 January 2026.

The return of nature is exaggerated

A rabbit in our neighbour's yard

 

Wild turkeys have returned to this area

Somewhere on the West Island of Montreal beavers have returned and are bothering the local people with their behaviour, they are felling trees along the shore and the earth is being eroded there. It is not so much that nature is returning but that the natural habitat for wildlife is being invaded by people and the wildlife has nowhere to go but to live among us. It’s not so bad, food is plentiful, and the animals get used to eating what we discard. The other night, it was 4 a.m., our spotlight in the rear of the house went on and I saw a big fat raccoon walk by the basement window not three feet from where I was standing. Other visitors include skunks, rabbits, ground hogs, and many types of birds I rarely saw even five years ago; for instance, many cardinals, juncos, and other birds. I never saw any wildlife when I was growing up in this neighbourhood, on Oxford Avenue, that’s because only a few blocks away there were a few fields where animals and birds could still live. Or these animals that we didn’t see in the past are now among us, moved in from the surrounding countryside, because the off-island land is being developed. These fields that were in this neighbourhood are long gone, condos, apartment buildings, and duplexes were constructed there years ago. As another example, rue Norman (in Lachine, parallel to Highway 20) used to be wide-open fields, some of it formerly used for agriculture, now it’s an industrial zone and made up of garages, trucks, and various companies.

A ground hog with babies on the next street over

Butters the Wild Turkey, 2019 - 2021, RIP

This is Butters outside our front door, early January, 2021

Butters, the wild turkey, has died; he never learned how to navigate traffic. A neighbour tells me he looked out of his living room window one day and saw three wild turkeys. So this isn't the end, just a chapter. In the local history of Covid there will be a chapter on Butters, he was a celebrity on social media, he brought people together; I would see crowds looking at Butters and talking, people loved that bird. He brought us together and then he was gone. He was everywhere, one day in Montreal West, the next day outside of Police Station Nine, he was famous in Loyola Park, he had a following wherever he went, and then he'd be back on our street sitting in a tree sixty feet up in a snow storm. But he wasn't too bright, the only reason he didn't walk on the road was that there was no food there. Butters had also become a peeping turkey, looking in people's windows. Butters, gone but not forgotten; he gave so much and expected so little.

Fox at Cote des Neiges Cemetery

Not far from downtown Montreal, Cote des Neiges Cemetery is at the heart of Montreal... here's a fox seen one winter day, in March, not far from McGee's mausoleum...

 

 

...urban wildlife at Mount Royal Cemetery...