Crane Drain

Though all birds are gifted with a share of grace, only the crane, with its stately neck and stirring wings, can claim royal bloodlines. In ancient China, Prince Yi of Wie gave cranes the rank of civil servants and generals, while in Japan they were considered sages and became the symbol of peace in the aftermath of war. Australian Aborigines patterned tribal rituals after the cranes’ elegant dances, and in India they are considered the holy messengers of Vishnu; they are the birds of heaven.

Like many beautiful things, however, cranes are delicateand they are dying. In Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes (North Point Press; 350 pages), nature writer and novelist Peter Matthiessen records his encounters with each of the 15 species of crane, a series of journeys that takes him through Asia, Australia, Africa and North America. He arrives each time in the wake of vanishing populations like a policeman reaching a murder scene too late. The cranes’ struggles in their eroding habitats are depressingly familiar but Matthiessen and his fellow “craniacs” remain undaunted. His book, like his life, is a tribute to the fight against the destruction of nature and, in a deeper sense, the personal struggle with what the naturalist Louis Crisler called the inextricable link between “love [of the earth] and despair.”

Part giddy bird-watcher and part environmentalist railing against big business, Matthiessen can sketch the fleeting sight of a rare blue crane beating its wings against the African sky in a few lithe words, then explain in detail the ecological effect of modern development. (Accompanying Matthiessen’s descriptions are Robert Bateman’s evocative illustrations, a blend of photographic naturalism and warm impressionism.) Although the writer’s encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world occasionally makes the book slow going, he has an eye for essential details that cut through the nomenclature. For example: the crane has had the misfortune to live in areas that have been devastated by war, yet Matthiessen takes delight in observing that one of the best crane sanctuaries on earth now exists, quite unintentionally, in a literal no-man’s-land: the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea.

The serendipity of Korea’s DMZ, sadly, is a rare example of contemporary man’s benevolent effect on cranes. More accurate is the situation in the Amur River border region between Russia and China, where both countries are more than willing to sell their rich natural resources to the highest bidderwith dire consequences for the cranes that dwell in the Amur basin. Matthiessen would stop the course of such progress cold. Yet Russia is desperately poor and China faces serious population pressure. Is it even faintly realistic to expect them to turn off the flow of foreign investment to save a bird, however lovely? Matthiessen doesn’t overly dwell on environmental realpolitik. Birds of Heaven is a record of dedicated wonder in the face of natural beauty and the wisdom that wonder can bring. For, as he writes, “if one has truly understood a craneor a leaf or a cloud or a frogone has understood everything.”