The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes
by Peter Matthiessen
Acclaimed writer Peter Matthiessen, a self-professed "craniac," has been observing and studying
all kinds of birds most of his life, but his pursuit
of cranes is closer to a spiritual quest than a naturalist's
exercise.
These majestic, mythic, and notoriously shy birds,
capable of soaring at heights of 20,000 feet, are often
fond of remote and rugged places, so just locating the
birds can be difficult enough, determining an accurate
number often impossible. Some locales, such as the breeding
grounds on the Platte River in Nebraska, boast flocks
half a million strong-- "by far the greatest crane
assemblies on earth"; other areas support only
a precious few.
Matthiessen's search for 15 different species of cranes
has taken him to hidden corners of Siberia, China, Mongolia,
Tibet, Sudan, and Australia (where Atherton cranes were
not even discovered until 1961). Despite his many years
of adventure and wide travels, each crane sighting is
still a thrill for him, and his curiosity and contagious
enthusiasm bring the book alive.
But The Birds of Heaven also serves as an ecological
warning: "Perhaps more than any other living creatures,
they evoke the retreating wilderness, the vanishing
horizons of clean water, earth, and air upon which their
species--and ours, too, though we learn it very late--must
ultimately depend for survival."
--Shawn Carkonen
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