Word: egret
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Cameras are poised, eyes peeled and expectations high as we cruise the water lily-strewn channels of the Yellow Water wetlands in the tropical Top End of the Australian outback. "Brolga on the left," the tour guide announces. All eyes swivel left, toward the graceful gray crane. Cameras click. "Egret just ahead," he calls. More craning (of necks) and pointing of cameras. "Darter, tern, black-necked stork!" The birders in the group are in a state of near ecstasy. The rest of us are biding our time. Ten minutes later we round a corner and the collective cry goes...
...losing my memory. I'd like to try that new Alzheimer's vaccine. Do I like tuna tartar? I forget. Do I like you? I forget. Of course I do. Let's go tubing, sailing, parasailing, assailing. Let's play softball, croquet, tackle football. That launch--how much? That egret--how much? I used to look forward to summer...
...ruin of the Everglades between 1880 and 1910, especially by hunters of egret and flamingo plumes and alligator skins, is a likely topic for novelist and naturalist Peter Matthiessen (Far Tortuga; The Snow Leopard). Matthiessen has made the despoliation of the planet, as well as the ways in which men who work close to nature survive, his main concerns. Lord knows he has done his homework, and he details the destruction repeatedly and with bite. Here is how Bill House, a hardy plume hunter, sees the history of the region: "The Injuns was taking some egrets, trading 'em in with...
Schlesinger falls silent, his glasses turned upward as a common egret, snowy in the bright light, floats over the shore. The glories of approaching fall along the Potomac seem to bring out an even greater awareness of danger in this singular man than he displayed in office...
...Snowy's big brother, the Great Egret, has benefited from conservation, as have other herons in North America, including the Black-crowned Night Heron ("quawk" to baymen), and the Green Heron. The picture in the Old World is not so pretty. World-ranging field birders and semiprofessional ornithologists will gladly find space on a tall shelf for this somewhat technical work, richly illustrated by Painters Robert Gillmor and Peter Hayman...