Nature Notes: An Eden in Pictures
I think it was D.H. Lawrence who said any village that you couldn’t walk through, one end to the other, in an hour or so, isn’t worth the trip. He probably would have enjoyed walking through East Hampton Village east to west, but if he stopped in the middle to check out the little stream that runs from the railroad bridge, down near the Methodist Church, his interest might be piqued enough to follow that stream south to its end, Hook Pond, and leave the rest of the walk to another day.
Sag Harbor Village has its Otter Pond, Southampton Village its Lake Agawam, but only East Hampton Village of those on the South Fork has a stream running through it, and that stream has a celebrated history. It is also a wonderful spot to take a walk, sit a spell, and enjoy nature. “Eden of East Hampton” is an appropriate name for the stream and the Nature Trail it runs through, as Dell Cullum (a contributing photographer for The Star) shows us in his new book by that name. If you are patient and visit this Eden repeatedly over the years you will discover that in terms of flora and fauna, almost without exception, every plant and animal that you can find throughout the rest of the East End, you can find in a few hours by meandering the Nature Trail.
My mentor in natural history, the late Paul Stoutenburgh, only a few years gone from this earth, was not only a nature writer but also a nature photographer, and he used to tell me that words will someday be replaced by pictures. Mr. Cullum’s book celebrates this prophecy. Yes, indeed, there are words, but without those marvelous photographs of his and some others, the book would not come alive in your hands the way it did in mine when I first opened it. It is truly a work of art.
Raccoon, white-tailed deer, wood duck, red fox, and on and on, they are all here as photographed by the author over a span of several years. He has even given some of them, the muskrats for example, names. As a budding biologist I was taught not to anthropomorphize species. That rule may work for biologists and other scientists, but it doesn’t apply to naturalists. That’s because naturalists don’t see themselves as outside of nature, examining it critically through the microscope or describing it in hours, minutes, and seconds or kilometers, centimeters, and millimeters from a safe impersonal distance; they are one with it, a part of it.
A true naturalist could never call a deer a “rat,” as I heard one North Haven epicurean describe the species; a naturalist loves nature and cannot bring himself or herself to harm it or speak badly of it.
How can one look at the photograph of the two cavorting fawns or the doe staring at the camera and then think about doing them in because the New York State Department of Conservation dictates that we need to take fewer bucks and more fawns and does if we are to be successful at thinning the herd? The mute swans that populate the Nature Trail are absolutely majestic in form and better parents than most of us are, but again we hear from the D.E.C. that they are invasive and should be gotten rid of.
But “Eden in East Hampton” is more than just a book about the area’s nature, it also trolls the long history of the Nature Trail, its former owners, the Hunttings, et al., the Japanese teahouses, the exquisite little bridges, and how it metamorphosed over the centuries into what it is now. All of those historic users apparently loved it as much as the children who go there by the carload day after day to feed and gaze at the waterfowl. And why not? It is the Eden of East Hampton.
While the world is in the throes of going to pot due to global warming, internecine wars, crime, greed, and bad personal habits, and nature is suffering horribly, it is very comforting to know that this beautiful little area with its surprise-a-minute history is squirreled away for safekeeping well into the future for all to experience. Nice job, Dell!
Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].