More House(s), Fewer Trees

On my street, there are trees behind the houses.  The green space on our side of the street is a ravine.  Although our lot extends part way up the far side, I've never been back there.  It's dense underbrush and not really passable, with towering oaks overhead.  During the summer, the houses on Lanier Place are completely hidden by vegetation.

With construction going on, we are losing more of the trees that make this greenbelt.  They took out the trees that were behind the house I still think of as Angela's house, and now the house will fill what used to be the back yard.  From Kathy and Steve's backyard, the view over the fence (I am sure the builders will add a fence) will not be of their neighbors' backyard, but of their house, going all the way back to the diminished treeline.

Friday afternoon when I was walking the dog, a man driving a City of Atlanta car posted this sign in front of the duplex:

I talked to him later, when he finished walking around the empty lots where the apartments used to be at Wessyngton and North Highland.  I asked if he was a city arborist, and he said he was. Did the orange sign mean more trees were coming down?  It meant that there was a proposal to remove trees; it had not yet been approved; if and when it was, the yellow sign would replace the orange one.  I gestured to the empty lots where the apartments were.  We're worried about losing more trees here too, I told him.  He said the trees weren't being adequately protected there.  

The next day I walked around and saw what he was talking about.  This tree had been left when the demolition was done, but has been badly damaged, presumably by the equipment that had been used.

Yesterday morning I woke up early and heard for the first time in a while one of the neighborhood barred owls.  It wasn't so close, but it sounded like it was somewhere in the trees behind our house.  A little later in the morning, when I was walking the dog, I heard an owl again, this time on the other side of North Morningside.  Yesterday afternoon, I was out with the dog at dusk and heard it again, but this time it was closer.  It kept calling and seemed to be staying in one place, and as we walked toward home, we were getting closer.  I think it was in the trees behind where Angela's house used to be.

I hate it that we are losing so many of the trees on our street.  At some point, surely it will matter.