On Manhattan's Lower East Side, just above Avenues A, B, and C (an area known as "Alphabet City") is Stuyvesant Town, an environment of apartment buildings surrounding a village green, known as "The Oval". Stepping into "Stuy-town" from the city is like popping into another dimension lush with tall trees, bushes, wildlife, people, playgrounds, tennis courts, and basketball courts.

On a cold afternoon in early April of this year, while taking a stroll there, I heard a loud squawk from the low branches of a nearby tree. Looking up, I saw a pair of very large hawks mating. After, Father hawk flew off to one building while Mother hawk stayed, looking back over her shoulder. Mother hawk then took off in another direction. I watched them fly back and forth all afternoon with twigs in their beaks, building a nest on top of one of the towers. It became apparent that Stuyvesant Town was their home, also.

A week and a half later, my wife - armed with her camera - and I were down at Allaire State Park, on the northern outskirts of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. It was an unusually warm, sunny day for April, and we watched as a grandfather caught a stray garter snake and introduced it to his young grandson. The snake was a warm gray with strips flecked with yellow. Holding the snake gently, he explained that snakes were to be respected - not feared - and that they were helpful to people by eating insects and pests, and keeping nature in balance.

The young boy tentatively held out his arm, and the snake wrapped his tail around it. "It feels silky," said the boy.

"This is a Mama snake. Most mama snakes lay eggs, but garter snakes don't. This Mama's babies are going to be born live. See how dry and soft her skin is? Look at her sides carefully; see how they move? She's breathing, just like you and I. She smells with that tongue she keeps flicking in and out of her mouth. We'll let her go now."

And the garter snake calmly slid into a nearby pond and, making "S" shapes, ribboned to the other side. The sunshine made gold spangles on the water.

Later that day, we returned home to discover that our local rabbit had dug a hole in our front yard, in preparation for babies. It was lined with light-yellow dried grass. Mother Rabbit had even transported pine needles from the backyard to the front, as a rain-proof door to the hutch.

It was a complement to the robin's nest that was being built on the spot lights in the back of our house. Mother Robin had been working on it for the better part of two weeks, patiently fitting twig into twig with her yellow beak. The whole yard was about to become a maternity ward.

We spent late afternoon that same day back at Stuyvesant Town, visiting relatives. While there, my wife had discovered a mother squirrel trying to rescue her baby, which had obviously fallen out of the nest. Desperately, the Mother Squirrel took her child in her mouth and kept trying to return the babe to the nest. Halfway up the tree, she kept losing balance and dropping her child. It was upsetting and sad; the child squeaked a bit and then moved no more.

Back at home the next morning, the hole in our front lawn was carefully covered with dried grass, fur, and pine needles. Overnight, Mother Rabbit had given birth.

In the nest out back, three blue eggs rested quietly.

Happy Mother's Day

(Thanks to my wife for taking the snake and squirrel photos.)