City Beasts: Fourteen Stories of Uninvited Wildlife - Couverture souple

ALSO BY MARK KURLANSKY

In time he understood that nature was not something outside the human world. The reverse is true. Nature is the real world, and humanity exists on islands within it.

ODD BIRDS IN NEW YORK

Some 6,000 years ago the people in Mesopotamia created the first written language. At first it was simple line drawings. They developed about 2,000 characters, all pictures of objects. After about 2,000 years the written language, now known as cuneiform, had developed into wedge-shaped symbols, dashes put together in different configurations. Each of these geometric characters represented an idea or often just a sound. Mesopotamian society revered the elite few who could write and read these texts, which were written on clay tablets. If these scribes were revered, birds were sacred animals because their feet left messages in clay that resembled cuneiform but were another language, one even the scribes could not read. Perhaps the messages were intended only for other birds.

Far up in the northern regions of New York City, in a place known as the Bronx, in what was called a zoo, was a huge birdcage made of metal, wrought and twisted and crafted to perfection. In the cage lived some of the most beautiful birds in the world, including a bright green quetzal from Guatemala. The quetzal didn’t know that he was originally from Guatemala, just like he didn’t know that he now lived in the Bronx. Nor did he understand the idea of a zoo. But he may have suspected that he was beautiful.

For most of his life he had lived in this tall cage with laurel branches to perch on and all the avocado he could eat. There were also other birds from different places or maybe the same place. He didn’t really know. This quetzal had been in the Bronx for so long that he no longer remembered the green highlands of his birth, and he was not unhappy where he was.

He was a quiet bird who kept to himself, often spending hours on a branch without moving until everyone forgot he was there. But he had a friendly look, his close-cropped fuzzy green plumes setting off his little round head. Hairless monkeys, some with hair on the tops of their heads, came to the cage to see the birds and they always liked the quetzal when they could spot him. He tried not to be spotted and they never harmed him.

Late at night there were screams of faraway monkeys—loud, shrill notes held for long seconds. But it was in the distance and not very troubling. The quetzal had a vague notion that nights were much noisier in his native land. He liked the quiet night in the Bronx. But now he was hearing an odd creak. He heard it again. He looked up at the bolted metal struts of the cage, the only sky he could remember, and suddenly the cage began to fall in. Birds screeched and squawked and chirped the news: the aviary was collapsing.

Metal was crashing to the ground louder than monkey screams, and feathers seemed to be everywhere. The quetzal had only one thought—he had to get in the air where it was safe. So he spread his green wings and showed the golden tips and unfurled his two-foot tail that was almost twice the length of his glowing green body.

It is difficult not to notice a quetzal in flight, which is why they prefer not to move too much. They fly with a long, undulating green feather tail, and the fine scarlet under feathers of the body show from below. The ancient peoples of Central America, the Mayans and the Aztecs, believed the quetzal was a god. They called it a winged snake. Even today its official name is the Resplendent Quetzal.

But now everyone was too busy to notice the resplendentness of the quetzal’s flight. Some of the birds went to the bottom of the cage, where there were huts and branches to hide under, and others took refuge in the nearby trees. But the Resplendent Quetzal took off for the Guatemalan highlands that were buried in his memory.

One of the birds in the chaos below was a scarlet ibis from the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where he was born in a dark, briny marsh known as the Caroni Swamp. From his very long beak to his even longer legs, he was a bright red, and the bright plumage at his head gave him a showy look, not completely inspiring trust. But despite the gaudiness, he was a startling beauty.

The scarlet ibis did not know what Trinidad was, but he did remember that he came from the Caroni Swamp. He would go there now except that he had no idea where it was. He remembered fishing for shrimp in black water with his long beak and the way his whole family, even cousins, would all settle into the same tree and enjoy the peace of sunset. Now there was no red light of sunset, only blackness and a bright round silver moon bigger than the eye of a giant.

He looked up and saw in the silver-bright light what the ancient Mayans had seen, the beauty of the red-and-green winged snake. The scarlet ibis himself was a god in the Caroni Swamp and the descendant of an ancient ibis that the Egyptians considered to be the moon god Thoth, who had invented language. He took three huge steps and folded his long thin legs under his red body and, spreading his enormous scarlet wings, took to the air, climbing over the Bronx until he was right next to the quetzal.

The two gods, the Winged Serpent and Thoth, felt good flying over the Bronx. The scarlet ibis felt that he was really flying for the first time in years, stretching his neck and his wings, feeling strong. He would not come down until he found the family tree in the Caroni Swamp. The winged snake could come with him if he wanted to.

But while he searched for the Caribbean swamp, the quetzal was in the highlands, dreaming. Flying and dreaming was what he was meant to do. Misty memories crept back, of a place where the little avocados were not scattered on the ground but grew on trees and the laurel was thick above the mountains and the clouds brushed the treetops above a red-and-black-soiled earth. These memories visited while he snaked through the air with his long tail.

The two flew into the night drunk, on their little sips of freedom.

*   *   *

For a time they were gods and they needed only this feeling of flight. But where were they going and how to get there? Each wondered why the other was joining him. Were these the quetzal’s highlands? Where was the ibis’s swamp? Alone in the sky feels good for only a short time. They needed family. They needed other birds. So then they became companions because that was what they needed. Where were all the other birds? The ibis could not remember ever being this alone.

The quetzal had only one relative in North America, a cousin in Arizona called the coppery-tailed trogon, who was also green and red and white. He, too, was said to be very beautiful, but he was a trogon, not a quetzal, and the quetzal didn’t know about him or Arizona. He knew only how to find the broken cage in the Bronx and he was considering returning.

The scarlet ibis, like most of New York, had relatives in Florida. The Florida relatives were pink flamingos, but to a scarlet ibis a pink flamingo is very pale, with bad eating habits. Instead of the pointed bill with which the ibis delicately picked through food, flamingos had a scoop for digging up mud, which they then sucked through strainers in their bills. He also had closer relatives on Long Island and in New Jersey, known as the glossy ibis, not as brightly colored and more common, but not known to him. He did not know where to find any birds and he, too, was considering heading back to the Bronx.

In truth, the scarlet ibis and the quetzal had been living a very easy life in the aviary, being fed gourmet meals and doing very little flying. Now they were getting tired and looked for a place to land. In the dark the expanse below shimmered like a forgotten moonlit sea somewhere that the ibis had once flown over.

But as the night sky turned purple and yellow on the edge of morning, they saw that this was something very different. They saw squares and boxes. They did not know that this was real estate, or how much it was worth in a seller’s market, that it was honeycombed with monkeys even tunneling under the ground. They didn’t even know that there were straight wide paths for machines that made monkeys move faster, only the machines moved too slowly because there were too many of them, or that there were panels selling things or posting warnings from Homeland Security. They knew none of this. All they knew was that this did not look like a good place for birds or for gods.

*   *   *

Ramona Pensky, who loved birds, was never going to give up her Fifth Avenue apartment. Where else in Manhattan could she wake up to birdsong? She went to court to keep her apartment facing the park. Once her lawyer revealed that her husband had used the World Trade Center attack, pretended to be caught downtown when he was two blocks away at Lydia Paulsen’s apartment, shacking up while others were dying—the lawyer was brilliant—the apartment was awarded to her even though she could barely afford it. Every morning she listened to the birds, put on her embroidered Barneys slippers, strolled to the window, and gazed into the park anxiously on the toes of her slender feet. She was a small, delicate woman, and it would be easy to say that she resembled a bird, though most birds were smaller and had rounder bodies than did she. She wondered why from her apartment overlooking the park, no matter how hard she looked, she could not see the birds but only heard them. Very small birds, she supposed.

*   *   *

The ibis and the quetzal spotted a spacious green rectangle. There were trees and lakes. The quetzal hoped the wooded hills might be his highlands and the scarlet ibis circled a marshy area to see if it was the Caroni Swamp. But his family tree wasn’t there, and though it was not yet dawn, all the ibises seemed to have already left.

The quetzal slowly descended onto a tree branch, letting his long tail float into position like a parachute gracefully landing. A very large crow, maybe a raven, was staring at the quetzal in a way that made him uncomfortable, so he moved to a higher branch. The raven had only been thinking that it might be fun to pull on that tail.

The scarlet ibis landed his bright red plumage in an even higher branch, a swath of color looking too large to be a fruit but very ripe. They sat in silence in the tree as the morning light began to butter the green grass below. They were both thinking the same thing. They were hungry. This meant something entirely different for each of them. The quetzal was looking up, as quetzals do, and the ibis was looking down, as is their habit. What crustaceans were in the waters? What fruits were on the trees?

Instead they saw birds in the grass. They had brown coats and rust-colored breasts, not bad-looking birds, the two in the tree thought, but not nearly so beautiful that they should be strutting and sticking their chests out. They had that eagerness characteristic of smaller birds.

From their tree perches the two watched to see what food the rust-breasted birds were finding. The quetzal hoped they were looking for avocados, though they were not looking in the trees. The scarlet ibis hoped they were looking for shrimp, but they were not looking in the canals or at the water’s edge. Then they realized.

The birds were eating worms. The quetzal and the scarlet ibis had seen birds eat bugs. In the Bronx they had seen the vermilion flycatcher—very quick. But you didn’t need to be quick to catch worms. The rust-breasted birds were very good at finding them, pulling them from the ground, holding the slithery things in their beaks and then swallowing them.

The ibis spread his scarlet wings and gently drifted to the ground. The quetzal followed. The scarlet ibis drilled the ground with his long beak and pulled out a worm. It was slippery and slithered off his beak. Hungry as he was, he did not really want to eat it. Suddenly they heard a group of voices like an ancient bird choir.

They looked up and saw that they were surrounded by angry little brown birds with rust chests. The brown birds did not want these two eating their worms. These brown rust-chested birds were robins and they seemed very proud of that. Their beaks turned almost red with pride—or was it anger?

It was clear that this was not the Caroni Swamp or the highlands and they did not belong there and these American birds, the robins, did. The robins were the first birds of spring and they were entitled to the worms. Every place has its rules and those rules usually favor the local birds, which is why most birds prefer not to travel. They would see if the pigeons could help. Pigeons always know how to find food.

*   *   *

Dr. Ifigenio Sanchez stared at the sky. He shouldn’t complain. He lost only two birds. Why those two? Why the ibis and the quetzal? Did they have stronger urges toward freedom than other birds? Stronger memories of home? Where would they go? They were not species that would adapt well to New York or the Northeast. Would they know to fly south? Dr. Sanchez suspected that they wouldn’t go far. It was an unusually warm spring, so they might not get sick. But would they find food? How determined were they to feel freedom? And how long would that last? He alerted the city, the Audubon Society, and several New York bird-watcher groups. Now he could only wait.

*   *   *

The scarlet ibis and the quetzal had run into pigeons before and nothing good had ever come of it. In the Bronx they didn’t even allow pigeons inside. But it was a bird they knew—knew a little, though they didn’t understand them. Dr. Sanchez always called them rock doves. They were unimaginative hunters and they had good and durable marriages, neither being particularly admired traits in the bird world. But pigeons, even without hunting, were fat and always had food. That was because they knew how to get food from the monkeys, a useful skill.

And so the scarlet ibis and the quetzal put down the robins’ worms and went looking for the pigeons. Neither had ever personally met a pigeon, but they had often seen them outside the aviary. They were not difficult to find. Pigeons, the opposite of quetzals, were always found around the hairless monkeys, and the ibis called them boat birds because they always came into the swamp in boats. It took only a one-minute flight to locate a path that the monkey/boat birds used, and as the ibis and quetzal came in closer they could see it was crowded with fat, gray pigeons. They lowered themselves to the ground with great reluctance because the ibis did not like to expose himself to boat birds out of their boats and the quetzal didn’t mind hairless monkeys outside the cage, but not in the open like this.

No sooner did the scarlet ibis have this thought while drifting down to the pavement than one of the boatless ones shouted to the other, “Look! It’s one of those birds we saw in Florida!”

They thought he was a flamingo, but the scar...