Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in World of Grassland Birds

By Trevor Herriot

Book Overview

Published to wide acclaim, this beautiful meditation on the fate of grassland birds has been praised for its profound wisdom and lyrical grace. Herriot, in a narrative that is at once intimate and informative, argues for the essential nature of these tiny creatures. He invites us into the unique world of dedicated scientists, passionate naturalists and such historical figures as 19th-century botanist John Macoun, the last naturalist to see the Great Plains in its pre-settlement grandeur. Now in a beautiful paperback edition with flaps, illustrated with the author's delicate black-and-white drawings, Grass, Sky, Song is a blending of personal experience, history, philosophy and scientific research. Filled with evocative "sidebar" descriptions of threatened birds, from the sharp-tailed grouse to the chestnutcollared longspur, this graceful book demonstrates why Trevor Herriot is regarded as one of Canada's finest non-fiction writers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1554680395
• ISBN13: 9781554680399
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Phyllis Bruce Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Another solid title from the new Prairie naturalist

I'm an Australian who lived in the prarie region of Canada for 2 years and fell in love with the place instantly. I took, and still take, a keen interest in the ecology of the region and human ecology (people's interactions with their environment) especially. While this book is primarily about grassland birds, Trevor Herriot being a keen observer of prairie natural history and a gifted writer and observer makes it so much more. He takes the case of those beautiful muses of the expansive grasses and links them back to that ever-present yet un-definable "spirit" anyone who's really taken the time to get to know the great plains will describe to you. To me the book takes to the plight of a fading world and peoples' roles in that change rather than a kind of trainspotters guide to prairie bird varieties (you don't need a tweed hat and a pair of binnoculars to really get into this one! although a love of wide open prairie spaces is highly reccommended). In doing so Herriot manages to describe the vast shifts the spirit of the prairie has undergone in the last century and to link this to human acitivity in the area - namely a change from a regime of mobile and free moving bands of people engaged in buffalo hunting and judicious use of fire, to eradicted buffalo, smothered fires and confined spaces - but does so without making trite romanticisations of a past-life, or making crude hollywood charicatures of the Indigenous peoples of the plains. There is much to be admired about these cultures, their respect and understanding for the spirit of the prairies and all that goes with keeping it healthy and especially their love and care for the birds of the plains. Herriot paints this vision of respect in a realistic lens of equals looking to equals. No mystic wolf-spirit, full moon, feathered headressed chief pictures here. Most impressively Herriot makes very practical observations for how an agrarian lifestyle, quite alien to the ecology of the plains, can make sensible, responsible, practical and generous steps towards really becoming a part of the place where it dwells, and not simply existing on top of it and often in competition with it's natural neighbours. This he suggests can well and truly begin to happen without radical change and the abandonment all-together of this lifestyle (something radical ecologists often spout without ever stepping out of the ideal abstract and onto the ground). Something often lacking in naturalist writing is his realistic and incisive view of the plight of our natural friends and relations without descending into blame-slinging and hopeless disempowerment. Herriot ultimately shows us that by adapting, learning to share and accomodate - as these singing prairie marvels have done to survive - we can move beyond needless decimation of other species and begin to develop a really healthy sense of respect for our place in the natural world, our neighbours and relatives there and ultimately ourselves as we build a very deep