0 Foreword

JEAN CRAIGHEAD GEORGE Newbery Medal-winning author of Julie of the Wolex Frightful" Mountain The sequel to Me Side of the Montain and On the Far Side of the Mounacin

让·克雷格黑德·乔治，《狼女茱莉》纽伯瑞金奖得主，《凶煞山》作者，本书是《山居岁月》与《远山山居》的续作

Foreword In 1986, I met Jean Craighead George at a friend's home in the upstate New York town where we all live. I grew up admiring the Craigheads, a family of naturalists, whose adventures I followed in National Geographic magazine, where they always seemed to be attaching transmitters to grizzly bears, banding bald eagles, or paddling canoes and fiberglass kayaks on first descents down the best western white waters. Always, there were flocks of children participating in every adventure and experiment. I thought the Craigheads might be the only family in America that was having more fun than the Kennedys. Obsessed with falcons as I was from birth, I read My Side of the Mountain in 1964. When I met Jean Craighead George that day in New York, she reminded me about the letter that I had written her, at age eleven, politely inquiring if she knew where I could find an occupied kestrel nest. The following year, my father finally bought me a petstore red-tailed hawk. I manned her to my fist

前言 1986年，我在我们共同居住的纽约北部小镇的一位朋友家中结识了让·克雷格黑德·乔治。 我从小到大一直仰慕克雷格黑德一家，这是一群博物学家，我曾在《国家地理》杂志上追看他们的冒险：他们总给灰熊装追踪发射器，给白头海雕系脚环，或是划着独木舟和玻璃钢皮艇，首次漂流西部最棒的急流河段。 每一场冒险和实验，都有一大群孩子参与其中。 我那时觉得，克雷格黑德一家说不定是全美国唯一过得比肯尼迪家族还尽兴的家族。 我打出生起就痴迷猎鹰，1964年我读完了《山居岁月》。 那天在纽约见到让·克雷格黑德·乔治时，她提起了我十一岁写给她的信，我当时礼貌问她知不知道哪里有已经被红隼占用的鸟巢。 第二年，我爸爸终于给我买了一只宠物店卖的红尾鵟。 我把它驯得能稳稳站在我的拳头上了

although I still lacked the tutelage to train or hunt her. But in the autumn of 1968, I entered Millbrook School in upstate New York, drawn by its informal falconry program. At Millbrook, just across the Hudson from Delhi—where Sam and Frightful had had their adventures—I found a small cadre of students who not only shared my devotion to the birds, they had mastered the sport of falconry. That autumn, we captured and trained red-tails and kestrels, immature birds on their first migration. We used bow nets, bal chartris or harness pigeons, and contraptions that bristled with monofilament snares and nooses which we found diagrammed in Beebe & Webster's North American Falconry and Hunting Hawks or described in the classic writings of Frederick the Great. By the time the leaves fell in the third week of October, we had trained the birds to come when we called and to follow like dogs, but high in the canopy flying from tree to tree over our heads. We beat the bush below them for cottontail and pheasant, worked the corn stubble for giant Belgian hare and the forests for red and gray

即便那时候我还是没人指导，不懂怎么训练它、带它捕猎。 但1968年秋天，我考入了纽约北部的米尔布鲁克学校，吸引我的正是那里非正式的驯鹰项目。 米尔布鲁克就在萨姆和凶煞冒险的地点特拉华对面的哈德逊河畔，我在这里找到了一小群同好，他们不仅和我一样爱猛禽，还已经精通驯鹰这门技艺。 那年秋天，我们捕捉训练了红尾鵟和红隼，都是第一次参与迁徙的幼鸟。 我们用弓网、诱饵鸽、套索鸽，还有挂满单丝套索的装置，这些方法都来自比比与韦伯斯特《北美驯鹰与猎鹰》的示意图，或是腓特烈大帝经典著作里的记载。 等到十月第三周树叶落尽，我们已经把鹰训练得一唤就来，能像猎狗一样跟着我们，只不过它们高飞在树冠层，在我们头顶的林间穿梭翻飞。 我们在它们下方灌丛里赶猎，寻找棉尾兔和野鸡，在玉米残茬地找巨型比利时野兔，在林子里找红褐和灰色的

squirrels. We flew falcons and goshawks but mostly wild red-tails, pioneering many of the game-hawking techniques still used by American falconers. I don't think any of us realized how unusual our success in training red-tailed hawks to hunt was until we all made a pilgrimage to see Al Nye the following Thanksgiving in Falls Church, Virginia. Nye, one of the fathers of modern game hawking, flew peregrines and goshawks, the classic choices of traditional Asian and European falconry. Nye showed us his prized European goshawk, Suzie, and boasted that the bird had already taken a dozen cottontails that season. When we told him we'd taken around the same number with our redtails, he reacted sceptically. Convention considered the North American red-tail to be at best an inferior hunting tool. European falconers dismissed them contemptuously as "buzzards." We told Nye, "We have the pelts to prove it." We talked about hawks every spare moment—at meals, between classes, and after chapel. At night, we fashioned hardware, hoods, jesses, and gauntlets and bewits out of tough, pliant kangaroo hide. We marked in our memories the raptor nests

松鼠。 我们放猎鹰和苍鹰捕猎，但大多是野生红尾鵟，我们开创了不少猎鹰技巧，至今还被美国驯鹰人使用。 直到次年感恩节，我们一起去弗吉尼亚州福尔斯彻奇拜访艾尔·奈，才意识到我们训练红尾鵟捕猎的成果有多不寻常。 奈是现代猎鹰运动的开创者之一，他驯养游隼和苍鹰，这是传统欧亚驯鹰最经典的选择。 奈给我们看了他珍爱的欧洲苍鹰苏西，还炫耀这只鹰那个赛季已经抓了十二只棉尾兔。 我们告诉他我们的红尾鵟也抓了差不多数量，他对此表示怀疑。 当时的主流观点认为，北美红尾鵟顶多算不合格的捕猎工具。 欧洲驯鹰人轻蔑地把它们贬称为“笨鵟”。 我们告诉奈：“我们有猎物皮毛能作证。” 我们一有空就聊鹰——吃饭时、课间、礼拜结束后都聊。 晚上我们用坚韧柔软的袋鼠皮做鹰头罩、脚带、猎手套和系带这些配件。 我们把找到的猛禽鸟巢牢牢记在心里

we found during our daily winter hunting excursions when no leaves obstructed our view of the upper canopy. In the spring, we climbed up to those nests to band baby red-tails, crows, and owls. We learned to use ropes and climbing spurs to scale the tall oak and ash trees where the large raptors nested. I also learned taxidermy and basic veterinary skills, how to determine disease, check for worms, give injections, and diagnose a range of illnesses and parasites that afflict raptors and other animals. We even began a raptor breeding project, one of the first in history, and were partially successful, persuading a golden eagle and a red-tailed hawk to lay eggs in captivity. Since my years at Millbrook, I have flown hawks nearly every autumn. These days, I am flying a pair of Harris hawks. I have flown my hen, Cuchin (a superb hunter), for fourteen years. I continue to trap, band, and release hawks every migration on Orange County's Schunnemunk Ridge—a vantage from which, on a clear morning, I can glimpse the Catskill peaks around Delhi. On a good day with a south wind, we trap upwards of fifty hawks: peregrines, Cooper's hawks, sharp-shins, red-tails, goshawks, merlins, and golden eagles. I maintain

这些鸟巢都是我们冬季日常外出打猎时发现的，那时树叶落尽，高处树冠看得一清二楚。 春天我们爬上这些鸟巢，给红尾鵟幼鸟、乌鸦幼鸟和猫头鹰幼鸟系脚环。 我们学会用绳子和攀树钉爬上高大的橡树和白蜡树，大型猛禽都在这些树上筑巢。 我还学会了标本制作和基础兽医技能，能判断疾病、查寄生虫、打针，能诊断一系列困扰猛禽和其他动物的疾病和寄生虫问题。 我们甚至开了猛禽繁育项目，是世界上最早的同类项目之一，还取得了部分成功，让一只金雕和一只红尾鵟在人工饲养下产了卵。 从我在米尔布鲁克上学到现在，几乎每年秋天我都会放鹰捕猎。 现在我养了一对哈里斯鹰。 我的母鹰库钦已经跟着我十四年了，它是个一流的猎手。 每年迁徙季，我依旧会在奥兰治县的舒纳蒙克山脊捕鹰、标记后放生，晴朗的早晨站在这里，我能望见特拉华周边的卡茨基尔山峰。 赶上南风好天气，我们一天能捉到五十多只鹰：游隼、库氏鹰、松雀鹰、红尾鵟、苍鹰、灰背隼和金雕。 我一直保持着这份爱好

breeding aviaries for hawks and owls at my home in Mount Kisco, New York, a few miles from Jean George's home. I breed quail, pheasant, and occasionally turkeys, and I operate a wildlife rehabilitation center, with state and federal licenses that allow me to rehabilitate orphaned and injured raptors. My experience as a young falconer accounts in large part for my lifelong devotion to raptors and my continued interest in natural history. Our time as falconers left its mark on my schoolmates as well. All of them have chosen careers in the natural sciences or as environmental advocates with exceptional records. For each one of them, reading My Side of the Mountain was the formative inspiration of their falconry experience. My years as a falconer helped drive my own career choice as an environmental lawyer and advocate. The knowledge and experience I acquired from falconers have marked my life and made me a far more effective advocate on nature's behalf. I have to assume that thousands of other children outside my immediate circle were also inspired to varying degrees of ecological stewardship by their exposure to Sam Gribley's

在我位于纽约州基斯科山的家中，设有供鹰和猫头鹰繁殖的鸟舍，这里离让·乔治的家仅有几英里。 我养殖鹌鹑、野鸡，偶尔还会养殖火鸡，我还经营着一家野生动物康复中心，持有州政府和联邦政府的许可证，可以救助失亲和受伤的猛禽。 我年轻时当驯鹰师的经历，很大程度上让我一辈子都热爱猛禽，也始终对自然史保有兴趣。 我们当驯鹰师的那段时光，也给我的同学们留下了深刻印记。 他们全都选择了自然科学相关职业，或是成为了成绩出众的环保倡导者。 对他们每个人来说，阅读《山居岁月》就是他们驯鹰经历的最初灵感。 我多年的驯鹰经历，也推动我选择成为环境律师和环保倡导者。 我从驯鹰中获得的知识和经验，深刻影响了我的人生，让我能更有力地为自然发声。 我相信，除了我身边的孩子，还有成千上万的其他孩子，也都因为接触山姆·格里利的