The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker [Hardcover]

The basic fact that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker did once exist alone should have exonerated them, but they strove hard to gather definitive proof that it had survived. Whilst the ultimate prize to-date is a brief video clip, hopefully this will be sufficient to enable them to continue their work, and most important, ensure that this amazing bird is not lost once again, perhaps for good.

This book describes the story of the search, and covers the history of the bird itself. It avoids the trap of becomimg too scientific, and is a story that, to me at least, is as gripping as a good novel.

If even only a few birds of this size can remain undetected for so long in the swamps of the southern USA, how many other species are being obliterated before they are even discovered in the rain forests? I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in natural history.

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.

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.