Angelfish and giant sea bass, catfish and halibet, barracuda, urchin.

The waters brim with living creatures just as Yahweh declared.

Then another declaration.

And let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.

Birds, a new thing, not of the water nor of the land, but of the air.

Wings, beak, feathers, tallened toes.

Every bird will share these things. But one species is not enough.

Not for Yahweh. He makes the swooping swallow and sends it on global journeys. He makes the

kingfisher and teaches her to pierce the water and bring up wriggling food.

He makes the great horned owl with serrated feathers, fringe on the trailing edge,

velvet-like lining on the upper surface, a recipe for silent flight.

He makes emperor penguins, and as they flap their wings with their eyes on the sky,

Yahweh shakes his head with a smile and says, no, you'll fly underwater.

And they do. He makes the Peregrine falcon, sets it among the clouds, and points it straight down.

Dive, says the Almighty, and I'll make you faster than anything in the world.

He makes birds that prefer insects, birds that prefer seeds, birds that prefer mice, birds that prefer fish,

birds that hop and birds that walk and birds that run, birds that nest on rocks, birds that nest in trees,

birds that nest on the ground, birds for in trees, birds that nest on the ground,

birds for the water and birds for the tundra and birds for the desert and birds for the forest,

birds for the shore and birds for the mountains and birds for the valleys.

Blue Jays dressed in cobalt and white, black-cloaked jackdaws with ash and hoods, yellow-billed

toucans, scarlet-throated hummingbirds, white-breasted nut hatches, yellow-bellied sap-suckers.

...