- Gebundene Ausgabe: 272 Seiten
- Verlag: Houghton Mifflin (18. Mai 2005)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0618456937
- ISBN-13: 978-0618456932
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 21,1 x 15 x 2,5 cm
- Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 5.0 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (1 Kundenrezension)
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 959.945 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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From Booklist
In April 2005, a startling announcement burst into the national and international news--a bird long feared extinct, a bird so distinctive that it has been referred to as the "Lord God bird," had been rediscovered. Not only had various noted ornithologists sighted the bird, but one researcher had also managed to get a few seconds on videotape of the bird in flight. The ivory-billed woodpecker, the largest of its kind in North America, was back from the dead. Gallagher, currently editor in chief of Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology's journal Living Bird, was one of the first two qualified observers to see the bird in February 2004. This set off a massive, organized search, and with several other sightings, the scientists felt it was safe to report that the ivory-bill was not extinct. Although this momentous event had obvious implications for avid birders, it also validated the conservation technique of setting aside large tracts of habitat, and the author painlessly works both the science and the adventure into his tale. Gallagher's firsthand account, filled with portraits of other ivory-bill searchers, both professional and amateur, and evocative descriptions of the swamps and bayous where it was rediscovered, has an immediacy that sweeps the reader into the thrill of his first sighting. This is popular science writing at its best, and deserves a place in all libraries. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Pressestimmen
"The GRAIL BIRD is an enjoyable read ...a powerful call for conservation, and an exciting bird adventure" Boston Globe
"The GRAIL BIRD is less an ecological study than a portrait of human obsession." The New York Times
"[The GRAIL BIRD is] also, unqualifiedly, a fine book...Gallagher honors the Lord God Bird." Charlotte Observer
"A fascinating account...the reader never feels talked down to or left out of the adventure." Orlando Sentinel
"Gallagher's text is straight from the swamp: anything but dry." Dallas Morning News
."..An edge-of-your-seat ride into the hardwood swamps of the South that drips flavor like syrup on a mess of grits." Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Gallagher is not only a careful scientist and researcher, but a thoughtful and sensitive writer who clearly loves his subject." Tampa Tribune
"An engaging story and a triumph of conservation, highly recommended for most collections." Library Journal
"The GRAIL BIRD is less an ecological study than a portrait of human obsession." The New York Times
"[The GRAIL BIRD is] also, unqualifiedly, a fine book...Gallagher honors the Lord God Bird." Charlotte Observer
"A fascinating account...the reader never feels talked down to or left out of the adventure." Orlando Sentinel
"Gallagher's text is straight from the swamp: anything but dry." Dallas Morning News
."..An edge-of-your-seat ride into the hardwood swamps of the South that drips flavor like syrup on a mess of grits." Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Gallagher is not only a careful scientist and researcher, but a thoughtful and sensitive writer who clearly loves his subject." Tampa Tribune
"An engaging story and a triumph of conservation, highly recommended for most collections." Library Journal
In diesem Buch
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I GUESS THIS STORY BEGINS, at least for me, in an old white barn in a field in Ithaca, New York. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Stichwortverzeichnis | Rückseite
I GUESS THIS STORY BEGINS, at least for me, in an old white barn in a field in Ithaca, New York. Lesen Sie die erste Seite
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Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
In 1944, artist Don Eckelberry made a sketch of an ivory-billed woodpecker, drawn as a bird in flight, taken from a real-life sighting in Singer Tract, an area of swampy forests in Louisiana. This was the last universally accepted sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States - the Singer Tract was already undergoing rapid deforestation due to the logging industry, and the habitats that supported this rare and dramatic bird were increasingly shrinking. It was believed that the ivory-billed woodpecker had gone extinct.
While there were a few sightings in the following decades, in fact none could be confirmed. There was even photographic evidence (such as the Lowery photo of 1971), but such was often dismissed as hoax (shades of the Loch Ness monster). There were varying reports from Texas and Arkansas, but it wasn't until 1999 that a report came about a pair that piqued the interest of Tim Gallagher, author of this text.
'The bird is so iconic: big, beautiful, mysterious - a symbol of everything that has gone wrong with our relationship to the environment. There is such a sense of finality about extinction. I thought that if someone could just locate an ivory-bill, could prove that this remarkable species still exists, it would be the most hopeful event imaginable.'
Gallagher and friends, including Bobby Harrison, a native of the American South and familiar with the various forest and hunting lands, began a small-scale attempt to sight the birds, which then became a project of fanfare when Gallagher and Harrison both saw an ivory-bill, at 1:30pm on February 27, 2004. Gallagher recounts the story of various other ivory-bill observers and seekers, both from the past and in the present, and shows how the quest for the bird, likened in its appellation to the Holy Grail (object of another all-consuming quest) comes to become an integral if not the defining feature in many of their lives.
'To hear Nancy Tanner tell it, the only reason anyone is interested in her is that she was married to the ivory-bill expert Jim Tanner.'
This is a remarkable book about a remarkable subject - I was first alerted to the book via news reports, and have become interested in the quest for preservation of the habitats in which the few remaining ivory-bills live. That is perhaps the great underlying lesson here - not just the quest for the Holy Grail of birds, the elusive ivory-bill, but also the quest for the preservation of life and environment, in which we all must live.
Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.com (beta)
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34 Rezensionen
45 von 47 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
the inside story of the 2004 ivory-bill sighting!
17. Mai 2005
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
This is a well-written insider's tale of the confirmed sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas in 2004, which amazed all of us who are even remotely interested in birds and wildlife. The last previous confirmed sighting was in 1944, in the NE corner of Louisiana, an area that was logged and destroyed later that year. Interesting, then, that the rare bird, long thought extinct, shows up just upriver in Arkansas.
One of the things that makes Gallagher's book so good is his tracking down various unconfirmed sightings over the years. In light of what we now know, that the ivory-bill lives!, these sightings become much more plausible in retrospect. And there is a pattern that emerges -- sightings across southern Louisiana from west (Sabine River) to central (Atchafalaya Basin) to east (Pearl River). A long-lost tape has been unearthed confirming a 1966 "sighting" (hearing) in the Sabine River area of east Texas. The 850,000 acre Atchafalaya Basin was the location of several sightings in the 1970s and 1980s. A highly credible 1999 sighting in the Pearl River area led to an intensive search that found nothing. It is quite possible therefore, based on the evidence presented in this book, that the ivory-bill survives not only in the Cache and White River area of east-central Arkansas, but in the swamps of southern Lousiana as well!
What's the moral of the story? Habitat preservation! The area in Arkansas is protected land, which was expanded by Nature Conservancy purchases between the February 2004 sightings and the recent public announcement, and protecting critical habitat in the three river basins mentioned above might well secure more elusive ivory-bill populations. Designation and protection of critical habitat is in fact mandated by the Endangered Species Act.
The two top websites for more on the amazing ivory-bill story are The Nature Conservancy (http://www.tnc.org) and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (http://www.birds.cornell.edu).
One of the things that makes Gallagher's book so good is his tracking down various unconfirmed sightings over the years. In light of what we now know, that the ivory-bill lives!, these sightings become much more plausible in retrospect. And there is a pattern that emerges -- sightings across southern Louisiana from west (Sabine River) to central (Atchafalaya Basin) to east (Pearl River). A long-lost tape has been unearthed confirming a 1966 "sighting" (hearing) in the Sabine River area of east Texas. The 850,000 acre Atchafalaya Basin was the location of several sightings in the 1970s and 1980s. A highly credible 1999 sighting in the Pearl River area led to an intensive search that found nothing. It is quite possible therefore, based on the evidence presented in this book, that the ivory-bill survives not only in the Cache and White River area of east-central Arkansas, but in the swamps of southern Lousiana as well!
What's the moral of the story? Habitat preservation! The area in Arkansas is protected land, which was expanded by Nature Conservancy purchases between the February 2004 sightings and the recent public announcement, and protecting critical habitat in the three river basins mentioned above might well secure more elusive ivory-bill populations. Designation and protection of critical habitat is in fact mandated by the Endangered Species Act.
The two top websites for more on the amazing ivory-bill story are The Nature Conservancy (http://www.tnc.org) and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (http://www.birds.cornell.edu).
26 von 26 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Ivory-billed Woodpecker: The TRUTH behind the rediscovery
3. Mai 2005
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Tim Gallagher's newest book, The Grail Bird, is indeed the truth behind the rediscovery. I've been a follower of Ivory-billed Woodpecker history and sightings for several years. I've tried to read any book that has any noteworthy mention of the species within. This is the best book I have ever come across. It contains a great wealth of information on the history of the species right up to Tim's own personal sighting a little more than a year ago.
Do you know who took the mystery photos of the 1971 Ivory-billed Woodpecker? Tim does. And, thanks to his sleuthing, now I do too. It's all in his book.
Tim is a great writer and a great detective. He tracked down every possible lead he could find and interviewed anyone he thought may have seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker or who knew of someone who had. His interviews and stories are very interesting with great personal lines from Tim that will make you laugh and maybe even cry. After reading his book you will come away feeling as if you were there, right alongside Tim and his friend, Bobby, on their journeys for the truth.
I know you will thoroughly enjoy this.
Good reading!
Do you know who took the mystery photos of the 1971 Ivory-billed Woodpecker? Tim does. And, thanks to his sleuthing, now I do too. It's all in his book.
Tim is a great writer and a great detective. He tracked down every possible lead he could find and interviewed anyone he thought may have seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker or who knew of someone who had. His interviews and stories are very interesting with great personal lines from Tim that will make you laugh and maybe even cry. After reading his book you will come away feeling as if you were there, right alongside Tim and his friend, Bobby, on their journeys for the truth.
I know you will thoroughly enjoy this.
Good reading!
22 von 22 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
The Next Best Thing to Being There
9. Mai 2005
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I assumed we would have to wait a few months, or even a year, for the inside story of the rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait at all, as Tim Gallagher was simultaneously searching for the bird and working on this most excellent book. Another reviewer used the word "perfect" to describe The Grail Bird, and I think that's about right, as Gallagher has somehow arrived at the perfect mix of natural history, detective story, and memoir. It's a delicate balance, and he found it. This book won't be a best-seller, but deserves to be.
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