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Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet
Maria Mudd Ruth
Part naturalist detective story, part environmental inquiry, this vibrant narrative celebrates the fascinating world of an endangered seabird that depends on the contested old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest for its survival.
Rodale
June 2005
304 pages ISBN: 1594860904 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
"This chunky little seabird stole my heart." So confesses
Maria Mudd Ruth, a veteran nature writer perfectly happy to
be a generalist before getting swept up in the strange
story of the marbled murrelet. This curiosity of nature,
who flies like a little brown bullet at up to 100 miles an
hour and lives most of its life offshore, is seen around
land only during breeding season, when the female lays a
single egg high on a mossy tree limb in the ancient coastal
forest. Ruth traces reports of the bird back to Captain Cook's ill-
fated voyage of discovery on the Pacific Ocean in 1778, and
explores the mind-set of 19th- and 20th-century naturalists
who--despite their best efforts--failed to piece together
clues about the whereabouts of the bird's nest. She takes
the reader along on adventurous outings to coastal meadows
before dawn, and onto the ocean at midnight to learn
firsthand how scientists observe nature. She interviews all
the major players in the drama: timber company executives
and fishing fleet operators whose businesses are threatened
by conservation measures, as well as the so-called cowboy
scientists who are devoted to saving the marbled murrelet
from extinction. And, ultimately, Ruth conveys her
curiosity and passion for this rare bird onto the page for
readers to savor.
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