On the way to the beach, I passed a trellis festooned — indeed, overpowered — by English Ivy. Let’s call it a hedge. I had to stop, because emanating from that greenery was a cacophony of chirps and tweets reaching operatic levels. As I peered into the dark recesses of the leaves I saw … nothing. But I knew within those shadowy chambers were dozens of house (English) sparrows (Passer domesticus). It stopped me cold. What were those tiny birds doing so frenetically in there?
Actually, I knew part of the story: these survivors of the winter were gearing up for spring. They had coexisted peacefully during the cold months, but they were now, with increasing daylight, getting sexy and territorial. And arguing.
What struck me that chilly spring morning was that these were birds. Birds are associated with flight, with spreading their wings and sailing through the open air. Here they were chattering away in the shrubbery, hedge-bound. I remembered my visit to the Puerto Rican rainforest, where most of the birds were heard rather than seen. Essentially, they “go to cover.” Without patience and great effort, your ears get them but not your eyes. You have to be quick — quick as a bird. They are at home in the leaves, between furtive flights; the open sky is a danger.
I thought about this as my dog, Dory, and I walked down to the beach. The tide was fairly high, and as I stepped to the water’s edge, I saw a dark shape moving with liquid grace under the clear surface. Seal? Too small. Shark? Too small and too early. Fish? Not quite right. Then a red-breasted merganser broke the water’s surface with a small wiggly fish in her saw-toothed bill, shaking droplets off her feathered back. After a moment, she tipped back her head, swallowed the fish, rose for an instant, and dove back under the water. She was at home in the water, even as she would soon fly about the bay and eventually up to the northern latitudes, and, later in the season, nest in a tree cavity. Water. Air. Land.
For those disinclined to attend to lessons in natural history, think about this: we humans, with few exceptions, are lumbering around in two dimensions. We stand upright, totter here and there, and find our way to cushions or beach chairs or benches; the tiny minority of humans who swim and dive, fly and soar, delve into caves, explore rainforest canopies, or even just sleep in tents outside represent the exception that proves the rule. We drive in cars and fly in planes and mostly live indoors. Meanwhile, the birds above pity us for our two-dimensional existence — if they regard us at all.
It is not just birds. In Puerto Rico, the lizards, mostly anoles, luxuriate in the leaf litter as often as they clamber onto a sunny branch. Closer to home, the spring peepers that were serenading each other — and us — with their noisy chorus (how does one live in the proximity of such madness?) emerge in shallow wetland pools. When they are done with their bacchanal, where do they go? Nobody knows, but it is probably the upland leaf litter. Amphibians, they are at home in two elements.
The other day, at Beech Forest, I was watching pond turtles. One painted turtle was basking in the sun on a large rock. All of a sudden the rock moved, tilting the turtle off, and it began plowing through the shallow water. It was a massive snapping turtle, and it made its way through the murk like a submarine, only occasionally lifting its homely snout into the air.
Then there are the intertidal animals — the snails, barnacles, mussels, and others — that exist in a bifurcated world: under depths of water and out in the thin air, doused in salinity and basking in the sun. They have evolved to deal with reality in all its forms.
Even the air has its dimensions. Late in the season, the swallows and swifts are up so high in the columned sky that it is like a different element from the air above the ponds’ surfaces that they skim for insects.
We have not yet discussed the parasites that live inside and on others. Or the insect, plant, and fungal organisms that defy categorization in regard to habitat. Cicadas bide their time for 13 or 17 years in the ground, only to emerge for a brief existence in the light; a towering tree’s root hairs blindly grope in the dark humus to provide sustenance to their leaves way above; mushrooms are just the fruiting bodies of vast spreading mycelia below.
The world is a multidimensional theater. We occupy a sliver of it. It’s enough to make one humble.
