The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed WoodpeckerHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006 - 272 pages In April 2005, a startling announcement made national and international news: the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird thought to be extinct for nearly sixty years, had been sighted. The story behind this incredible discovery began more than a year earlier when, after a lengthy search, Tim Gallagher was one of the first people to see this iconic bird, the holy grail of birdwatchers. He persuaded the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology to mount a massive search for evidence of the bird's existence. The news was kept secret while field teams went to work and land was bought to conserve the ivory-bill's habitat. Gallagher's story reads like a mystery novel, and the subsequent conservation efforts provide hope and a lesson for our times. |
Contents
Of People and Peckerwoods | 1 |
Me and Bobby Ray | 28 |
Jim and Nancy | 37 |
Mary Mary | 54 |
White River Revisited | 66 |
A Paradise on Earth | 85 |
The Boxer | 100 |
The LSU Connection | 115 |
Back to the Bayou | 168 |
Where Sapsuckers Dare | 188 |
Trying to Prove the Existence of a Ghost | 205 |
Swamp Rats | 219 |
The Lazarus Bird | 235 |
Epilogue | 241 |
Afterword | 251 |
Acknowledgments and Sources | 265 |
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Common terms and phrases
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