I have not seen him since that May day of 1995 when we released him into the bushy shadows of the river edge. Perhaps he lurks in the thicket again this year and wisdom gained in past encounters helps him avoid my net. Perhaps he did not survive his annual round trip south and back. We are unlikely to find out, ever. Nonetheless, those brief encounters linked together distant corners of the planet into one home, a reminder that Costa Rica, Tirimbina and Riveredge are one thread in what is becoming increasingly evident is the tightly woven fabric of life on this planet.
T here are other such threads.
L oafing along the shore of Lake Superior this past summer I paused to examine a group of aging maple trees that leaned into the wind. Their bark was ragged and as I discovered, covered with lichens. Together they clothed the tree bark coloring it a pale greenish-gray. Toward the ground the lichens surrendered their place to greener mosses, but they colonized the trunk as far as I could see into the canopy. No sap sucking, energy robbing lifestyle for these lichen.