Peterson Books The Grail Bird

Excerpt: Bayou de View is a magical place where wildlife abounds. As we canoed through the swamp, wood ducks and flocks of mallards burst from the water around us. Herds of white-tailed deer, snorting a loud warning, splashed off across the shallow water at the edge of the woods. We saw beavers swimming past and otters playing. The loud calls of barred owls and great horned owls echoed through the dim recesses of the swamp, even at midday. But most impressive were the woodpeckers. Everywhere we turned, we saw a pileate, red-bellied, red-headed, and downy woodpeckers, plus a few yellow-bellied sapsuckers. And then it happened. Less than one hundred feet away, a large black-and-white bird that had been flying toward us from a side channel of the bayou to the right came out into the sunshine and flew across the open stretch of water directly in front of us. It started to bank, giving us a superb view of its back and both wings for a moment as it pulled up, as if it were going to land on a tree trunk. Look at all the white on its wings! I yelled. Hearing my voice, it veered away from the tree and continued to fly to the left. We both cried out simultaneously, Ivory-bill!