Wildfowl of the World [antikvár]

Foreword Out of our dim and distant unknown past, and throughout human history, the wildfowl of the world have been a part of the intimate furnishings of our environment: objects of fascination and fancy, of ritual and legend, of meaning far beyond mere provender for the family table. Those splendid skeins of geese we see streaming across a springtime evening sky draw a response from us so deep we cannot fathom it. Could it be, we ask something in our own genetic memory that responds to sights and sounds aeons older than any of us? Is this not an ancient marvel, born anew in us today? We know the recent history, recognizing these same threshing wings, this same fluid grace, in the jade carvings of ancient China; we see how the nameless artists of the Nile painted parades of geese across the walls of tombs and temples; we know how artisans of many lands and cultures have fashioned gold and silver into precious wildfowl ornaments for kings and princes. And we remember that Zeus, king of all the gods, ,became a swan for Leda. A few species of ducks and geese have been domesticated for thousands of years, but the species that live free far outnumber those few; it is the wild legions that stir our imagination and excite our aesthetic sensitivity. Yet today it is not only the hunter and provider who thrills to the dawn flight of the wigeon along the rivercourse, or the plunge of the teal into the marsh. Millions who have never owned or fired a weapon now share the marvels of the wildfowl quest. Hunting with camera, binoculars or simply with eyes and ears, they experience the bugling of swans high overhead above a dawn mist, the helter-skelter of a flock of pintail rocketing in to a woodland pool, an arrow of scaup skudding low over a wintry sea. Each of us, as enthusiasts, have our own gallery of images that will never fade. For me, perhaps, a field on the edge of the Senegal River with the sky a deepening purple, as tens of thousands of Garganey sweep overhead in a rush of wings like endless surf, almost invisible; of Snow Geese overhead in New Jersey, of eiders drifting across a grey North Sea, or of a lake in California with a raft of 17,000 Northern Shovelers. These are messages the world is sending us: life is abundant, life is good! This book is a rarity. It is not merely filled with the beauty and poetry of wildfowl, it is filled with knowledge. It is a useful book, authentic, accurate, comprehensive and it presents concise, yet precise accounts of almost every species of goose, swan, screamer, and duck found anywhere in the world, and tells where to look for them. And the gallery of colour portraits is unsurpassed. While we turn the pages, to marvel at the images of the birds themselves and find the answers to our questions, let us not forget that these magnificent creatures are here today by our grace and at our mercy. Whether we like it or not, we now possess, as never before, the weapons of their destruction. No longer are they the feeble bows and arrows or the fowling pieces of yesterday. Today's weapons are far more insidious and difficult to control. They are the oil spill, the destruction of marsh and estuary and swamp and shore, the chemical (and atomic) pollution of air and water. It would be preposterous to suggest that we must save the environment solely to ensure the future of our wildfowl, but in a world in which they cannot survive, the human race cannot live. The cause of the environment is everyone's concern. There is no more vital, or urgent cause than the health of the world we share - with the wonderful wildfowl and with all living things. Robert Arbib National Audubon Society New York, June 1978 vii