In cities, it goes without saying that coronavirus lockdowns have, at least temporarily, changed the way we live. But restrictions on freedom of movement have also changed the way we see.
True, some of the new phenomena Parisians are noticing now, after six weeks of confinement to our homes and a 1km radius outside for an hour’s exercise a day, are simply the result of our changed environment. Clean air and clear skies mean that the evening star (the planet Venus) shines extraordinarily bright in the western sky if seen from the Pont Neuf across the river Seine (or any other vantage point). When I first noticed it in March, I took it for an approaching aircraft with its landing lights on.
The near-absence of traffic has also revealed sounds drowned out for years by the roar of cars and buses — blackbirds singing on the Champs-Elysées, the rustling leaves of the poplars along the Seine — and given wildlife a chance to explore. Wild ducks wander past the Musée d’Orsay, a heron was spotted in the Tuileries gardens (still closed to enforce social distancing), a vixen is raising a family in the Père-Lachaise cemetery and two fallow deer were filmed strolling along the empty streets of the Paris suburb of Boissy-Saint-Léger.