BOOK REVIEWS: A Chorus of Cranes: The Cranes of North America and the World. Paul A. Johnsgard (with photographs by Thomas D. Mangelsen, and drawings and maps by Paul A. Johnsgard).

Authors

John G. Sidle, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment ProgrammeFollow

Date of this Version

6-2016

Document Type

Article

Citation

The Prairie Naturalist • 48(1): June 2016

Comments

Published by the Great Plains Natural Science Society. Used by permission.

Abstract

Once again, naturalist and author Paul A. Johnsgard invites us to dance and chorus with cranes, and to appreciate their beauty and links to another species, Homo sapiens. A Chorus of Cranes is about natural history but also is a plea for conservation, which is a common foreword, prologue, preface, and/or epilogue of many wildlife books. It is vintage Paul Johnsgard text from preface to epilogue, words that emerge after a long wade through countless papers and reports, and a prolonged career of observation and reflection in the field. He has beckoned us before to cherish cranes and the natural world in his earlier works such as The Platte: Channels in Time (Johnsgard 1984a); Cranes of the World (Johnsgard 1984b); Those of the Gray Wind (Johnsgard 1986); Crane Music (Johnsgard 1991); The Sandhill and Whooping Cranes (Johnsgard 2011); and over 60 other books and numerous papers.