The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes, by Peter Matthiessen; paintings and drawings by Robert Bateman (New York : North Point Press, 2003).
"The cranes are the greatest of the flying birds and, to my mind, the most stirring, not less so because the horn notes of their voices, like clarion calls out of the farthest skies, summon our attention to our own swift passage on this precious earth. 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." -- from The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes, by Peter Matthiessen
In this graceful, intelligent book, readers accompany Peter Matthiessen around the world in search of the fifteen species of wild cranes. The journey begins in Russia's Amur basin, "where boreal forest or taiga meets spruce muskeg tundra of the sub-Arctic." In this region of "astonishing biodiversity, seven different species of cranes appear," including the two Matthiessen longs to see "in their Asian marshes," the red-crowned and white-naped cranes, "the most beautiful of the seven." Mongolia's "Daurian Steppe and the remote valleys near the Siberian border," are Matthiessen's next stop. In this "last great grassland ecosystem left on earth," Matthiessen confirms the breeding ground of the white-naped crane. From there, he travels to India where we join him and his friend, Victor Emanuel, "guiding a band of intrepid travelers to observe northwestern India's wildlife in Gujarat and Rajasthan, where the four species of cranes include the dangerously diminished western Siberian crane." It is the "black-necked or Tibetan crane," that brings Matthiessen to Bhutan, whose royal government protects this "second-most endangered and least known of all the cranes." Continuing, Matthiessen next transports readers to Poyang Lakes in China, "a vast labyrinth of lake and marsh in Jiang-xi Province, in the lower Yangtze River basin," where "vast assemblies of migratory cranes of four different species," the Siberian, Eurasian, hooded, and white-naped, "may be found in winter." Matthiessen's last stops in Asia include a "journey to [Japan's] north island of Hokkaido" to observe the red-crowned crane, "dancing in Hokkaido's snows;" followed by a visit to the DMZ between North and South Korea. In the demilitarized zone, "where controlled farming -- but no habitation is permitted," he finds an "accidental paradise," a sanctuary for hooded and white-naped cranes.
Australia's outback offers a completely different landscape from the travels of the first seven chapters of The Birds of Heaven. For many years, the brolga was thought to be the only crane in Australia, but then "a few strange cranes were reported." Matthiessen transports readers to "Morr Morr station," where he and George Archibald, Director of the International Crane Foundation, headquartered in Baraboo, Wisconsin, monitor the progress of the "new" sarus cranes. Matthiessen jokingly calls their walks in the intense heat of the outback "death marches," but admits to loving "the morose landscape for its emptiness and silence, unbroken by man-made sounds of any kind, and also for a paradisal freedom from pollution in the air and water...an emptiness that is keeping the population of the sarus crane at satisfactory levels." Inspired by the blue crane, "the only crane I had never beheld in the wild," Matthiessen moves on to South Africa. When "two tall silver-blue birds emerge from the golden grasses in the clear mountain light of the late austral summer," Matthiessen's "search for the wild cranes of the world is at an end."
The last chapters of Birds of Heaven return Matthiessen to England and the United States. In England, his quest is the "western-most breeding territory in East Anglia" of the Eurasian crane. In the United States, it is sandhill cranes beside the Platte River, "where oxbows, shallow lakes and marshes, river edges, and harvested brown fields sustain the greatest assembly of cranes and migrant waterfowl left in America." The Birds of Heaven ends its travels in Florida where the whooping crane, "the rarest of cranes," struggles to survive.
As Matthiessen visits crane habitats around the world he shares information about each species -- their mythology and history, appearance, similarities and differences, migration routes, breeding areas, and the forces that threaten their existence. Matthiessen's precise and beautiful descriptions of the cranes, complemented by Robert Bateman's extraordinary paintings and drawings, bring the cranes to life, allowing readers to briefly touch their world. The joy Matthiessen experiences when he sees a crane in the wild is felt by readers, as his sadness and anger when their habitat is threatened.
Almost every crane we meet in The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Birds is threatened. Matthiessen knows the reasons why -- shrinking habitat, pollution, power lines and other hazards along migration routes, and other factors. It will take cooperation between countries and the activism of individuals to insure the survival of the fifteen species of cranes. We are, Matthiessen concludes, "the only one with the capacity to save them." If we don't, he warns, "the plight of Homos may not differ very much from that of Grus."
Websites
International Crane Foundation (ICF) http://www.savingcranes.org/
An important presence in The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes, go to the ICF website for more information on the organization and the cranes of the world.
Victor Emanuel Nature Tours http://www.ventbird.com/
Reading The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes will make you want to know more about Victor Emanuel's nature tours. The website doesn't disappoint!
"These elegant birds, in their stature, grace, and beauty, their wild fierce temperament, are striking metaphors for the vanishing wilderness of our once bountiful earth; in addition, they function as 'umbrella species' whose protection in the wild also protects a broad range of fauna and flora as well as the clean water, earth, and air of their extensive territories -- in short, sustains the astonishing variety of forms in nature (with their habitats and ecosystems) known as biodiversity." -- from The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes, by Peter Matthiessen
"One can only marvel at the endurance of wild animals and their strong instinct toward survival, which offer such hope as we have that these magnificent creations of our land and life can persist long enough for mankind to come to its senses and leave a place for them." -- from The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes, by Peter Matthiessen
Wild Crane Species
Siberian crane (White crane), Grus leucogeranus
White-naped crane (Daurian crane), Grus vipio
Demoiselle crane, Anthropoides virgo
Red-crowned crane (Japanese or Manchurian crane), Grus japonensis
Eurasian crane (Common crane), Grus grus
Hooded crane, Grus monachus
Sarus crane, Grus antigone
Black-necked crane (Tibetan crane), Grus nigricollis
Brolga, Grus rubicundus
Wattled crane, Grus carunculatus
Blue crane (Stanley crane), Anthropoides paradisea
Black crowned crane, Balearica pavonina
Gray crowned crane, Balearica regulorum
Sandhill crane, Grus Canadensis
Whooping crane, Grus Americana
"If one has understood a crane -- or a leaf or a cloud or a frog -- one has understood everything." -- from The Birds of Heaven : Travels with Cranes, by Peter Matthiessen
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