Wild Harvard
There are 492 trees in the two Harvard yards bounded by Quincy Street and Massachusetts Avenue, with 70 varieties in all, including 36 American elms, once the University’s signature species. If you look up into those trees, you might see some of the 30 or so species of birds commonly seen at Harvard, including the nuttall, mockingbird, and cardinal. If you look past the ubiquitous gray squirrels, you might spy a rabbit, skunk, opossum, raccoon, or even a red fox like the one seen last month near Harvard Stadium. (It was sleeping in a roll of blue tarp.) And if you look high enough, you can see the aerial raptors — hawks and falcons — that rest on the weathervanes, rooftops, trees, and balconies around campus. One nesting pair of red-tailed hawks takes up residence every year in a pine tree outside Pierce Hall on Oxford Street. And sometimes you can watch the animal...