Corvid City, letter to the editor

In response to Stephen Capra’s letter.

It started in the 80’s with pigeons. I don’t remember a single pigeon until Reagan was elected. Pigeons on the Mall. Pigeons above the Elks club.

I live in a place which faces Aspen mountain and used to be the “top of the hill” right at the 8000’ line where nothing was ever going to be built. It’s where the meadow and forest reclaimed it’s rightful place back from slides of slag miners left behind.  “Freddy” the first owner of #106 planted a pine tree at her back door. In 48 years I watched that tree grow- kissing my balcony and climbing past the roof. Hadid’s development came with the Pigeons and smashed the old boat tow shack leaving the 8000’  rule in the dust. Up went 15,000 sq foot homes between me and the mountain- unoccupied homes with pigeon spike rows  on perfectly oiled log pediments. I still had the tree between me and “dream homes”.   I watched generations of Steller’s Jays, Nuthatches, Chickadees, Juncos and Hummingbirds build their nests and raise families in that tree. Once there were 7 baby Steller’s in a row on my balcony rail. Over time the songbirds left.   By the time Obama was in office there was only a magpie nest in the  tree. By the time Trump was in office the tree had been cut down and my view of Aspens, Lodgepole pine, Blue Spruce and Queen Anne’s lace was replaced with an homage to Joni Mitchell….. a parking lot.

Now ravens sit in the trees  on either side of main street waiting for roadkill. Magpies chatter at West End diving after what your dog leaves behind.  Sparrows flock to Peaches and Paradise feasting on flakes of pastry. Gone are the pine siskins, the finches, the towhees… even the Camp Robbers stay far above us at the Sundeck or Maroon Bells. The last time I saw a Stellers Jay it was half way up Buckskin Pass.

People ask me what’s changed in 49 years. We used to be a town of humans living in a forest full of birdsong where bears stayed in the berry patches and watched us from a distance. Foxes were rarely seen and coyotes never. Now we are a town were the scavengers come to dine.