The Private Eye
In The Private Eye we learn about snow geese through theeyes of Native people, scientists, artists, hunters, and farmers.Yup'ik Eskimo Charles Hunt harvests snow geese along the YukonRiver delta each fall, continuing a subsistence way of life that hasexisted for millennia. Russian, Canadian, and U.S. scientists track themovements of the geese each spring and fall, banding, sexing, counting,and precisely monitoring the activities of these beautiful birds.Robert Bateman provides an artist's view of nature and relates howhis curiosity led him to join a camp set up at a remote nestingsite.
Mary Burns also talks to hunters, joining a party of them as theywait for their snow geese decoys to lure the real thing into a WesthamIsland field in the Fraser delta. As well, Burns travels around theSkagit River delta during a population survey and meets a dairy farmerwho describes both the wild flocks that converge on his fields eachspring and the snow geese he raises in pens.
The Private Eye suggests that by acknowledging our many andvaried connections with the natural world, we will have a betterunderstanding of the human place in it.
... the passionate story of her involvement with these geese who summer in the remote north of Siberia and winter on the deltas of the Fraser and Skagit rivers, as well as a strong sense of the geese within their environment, and a never-diminished sense of involvement....A wonderful read. (4 stars)
an interesting, sometimes poetic, factual narrative combined with an introduction to some of the natural history of a local species....occasionally Snow Goose behaviour is described in sufficient detail for me to recognize similarities with Konrad Lorenz’s greylag geese in the classic Here am I. Where are You?
Introduction
1. The Flight South
2. The Eye of the Beholder
3. Fall on the Fraser
4. The Scientific View
5. Data Surfing and Other Observational Sports
6. Another Perspective
7. Down the Ditch! Dialogues with Hunters
8. Snow Geese for Supper
9. The Festival of Snow Geese
10. Pair Bonding on the Skagit
11. The Flight North
12. Nesting on Wrangel, The Cycle Continues
13. Afterthoughts
