The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker [Anglais] [Relié]

This book is an outstanding example of the behind-the-recent-headlines genre. It tells the story of the obsessive quest to find the ivory-billed woodpecker, which was feared to be extinct (no confirmed sightings since 1944). Big, mysterious, iconic, the bird is "a symbol of everything that has gone wrong with our relationship to the environment." In the 19th century, it was plundered by collectors, and in the 20th, extensive habitat destruction seemingly drove it to extinction.

Gallagher, editor of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's publication Living Bird, has searched for the bird off and on for three decades. One day in February 2004 he read a posting on a canoe club Web site about a strange woodpecker that a kayaker named Gene Sparling had seen on a float trip down a remote bayou in eastern Arkansas. Less than two weeks later Gallagher and his fellow seeker, Bobby Ray Harrison, were in the swamp with Sparling, looking for the elusive bird. As readers of headlines know, they found it. The discovery gives us, Gallagher writes, "one final chance to get it right, to save this bird and the bottomland swamp forests it needs to survive."

Editors of Scientific American

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
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What is it about the ivory-billed woodpecker? Why does this supposedly long-extinct bird arouse such an amazing level of interest and dedication in its devotees, who range from respected researchers and naturalists to Loch Ness monster fanatics and Elvis chasers? Since the early twentieth century, scientists have been trying their best to prove that the ivory-bill is extinct. But every time they think they've finally closed the door, the bird makes an unexpected appearance. It happened in the 1920s, it happened in the 1930s, and it has happened almost every decade since. For at least the past sixty years, every sighting has been met with ridicule and scorn. Friendships have ended. Careers have been ruined. And yet the reports still trickle in. Now Tim Gallagher takes up the chase, heading deep into the trackless southern swamps and bayous to determine once and for all if the ivory-billed woodpecker still lives.

Tim Gallagher is a lifelong bird fanatic. An award-winning writer and photographer, he is editor in chief of Living Bird magazine, the flagship publication of the renowned Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. For many years Tim has traveled to faraway places, from the high Arctic to the tropics, to study and photograph birds and report on research.