Review Of "Peregrine Quest: From A Naturalist's Field Notebooks" By C. M. White

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

4-1-2007

Published In

Choice

Abstract

Imagine sitting around a campfire in the red rock country of Utah as the smoke curls into the sky, while an old hand tells tales of his adventures long into the night. This scenario gives a good idea of this autobiography about a life devoted to the peregrine falcon. As the title suggests, the material comes mostly from the author's field notes--taken on every continent except Antarctica. The observations and research results are mixed in equal part with exciting stories, jokes, quotations, and philosophy. Numerous photographs (some in color) of White (Brigham Young Univ.) and peregrines illustrate the nontechnical text. The work sorely lacks the hand of a good editor, but one gets a vibrant portrait of a man of the West working in an almost exclusively white male world wherever he travels. Despite a good index and full citations of all research mentioned, readers will not find this a useful reference source for peregrine falcons. Instead it sheds light on lavishly funded government research on a poster child species and the men who monopolized that sort of fieldwork in the past. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-/upper-level undergraduates; general readers.

Comments

This work is freely available courtesy of Choice Reviews. The review has been reproduced in full in the abstract field.

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