18 The Earth Calls Frightful

pure peregrine, sailing blue skies, journeying to new worlds—and that means she migrates." "Oh, Sam," Alice said, then thought a minute. "What makes birds migrate?" "A lot of things, but mostly lack of food in the cold north. They follow the food supply." "Then don't feed her if you are so anxious for her to be a pilgrim falcon." "I'm not going to," he said, stepping back to try to find Frightful among the branches of the ancient hemlock, but primarily to keep Alice from seeing his great sadness. He wanted Frightful to stay with all his heart. "I'm not going to," he repeated. IN WHICH The Earth Calls Frightful And then it happened.

纯种游隼，翱翔蓝天，前往全新世界——这就是说，它要迁徙啦。" "哦，山姆，"爱丽丝开口，接着思索了片刻。 "鸟类为什么要迁徙呢？" "原因有很多，但最主要是寒冷的北方缺食物。 它们要跟着食物走。" "既然你这么盼着它做一只远行的游隼，那你就别喂它了。" "我本来就不打算喂，"他说着往后退，想在古老铁杉的枝桠间找到可怕，其实主要是不想让爱丽丝看见他满心的悲伤。 他打心底里盼着可怕能留下来。 "我本来就不打算喂，"他重复道。 本章 大地召唤可怕 就在这时，变故发生了。

Frightful hopped from limb to limb until she reached the wispy top of the ancient hemlock. She turned her head slowly as she took a bearing on the sun's rays. She fixed on a longitude between ninety and seventy degrees. After many takes, the direction was indelibly printed on her brain. She pointed her head and body along the invisible line. She bent her knees and ankles. She lowered her wings. "Alice," Sam whispered. "Frightful's leaving us!" "How do you know?" "Look at her. She has that southward concentration of migrating birds. I've seen it in robins and blackbirds." Frightful flew. She did not look back. "But she loves you," Alice cried. "She can't go. She doesn't know what to do without you." "But she does," said Sam, watching her disappear. "She's flying south. "Come back in the spring," he called, then added, "I'll be waiting." Sam climbed the old hemlock, trying to catch one last glimpse of his beloved bird. She was already

可怕从一根树枝跳到另一根树枝，一直爬到这棵古老铁杉纤细的树梢。 它慢慢转过头，借着阳光确定方位。 它锁定了九十度到七十度之间的经度方位。 反复确认后，这个方向就牢牢刻在了它的脑子里。 它把头和身体对准那道看不见的方位线。 它弯曲了膝盖和脚踝。 它放下了翅膀。 "爱丽丝，"山姆轻声说。 "可怕要离开我们了！" "你怎么知道？" "你看它。 它已经有迁徙鸟类那种一心往南的专注劲儿了。 我在知更鸟和黑鸫身上见过这种样子。" 可怕飞了起来。 它没有回头。 "可是它爱你呀，"爱丽丝喊道。 "它不能走。 没有你它不知道该怎么生活呀。" "它知道的，"山姆说着，目送它消失。 "它正要飞去南方。 "春天一定要回来，"他喊道，接着又补充道，"我会一直等你。" 山姆爬上老铁杉，想再最后看一眼他心爱的鸟儿。 它已经

far away. She rode the prevailing wind over the familiar mountains and rivers and beyond the Catskills into unknown territory. She did not hesitate or turn back. She memorized the landscape as she flew— forests, rivers, highways, and cities. In one hour she saw the Atlantic Ocean ahead. Its plantless expanse told her it was not the way to go. She came down on a tor above the Hudson River and perched in an isolated ash tree. A Cooper's hawk and two red-tails were hunting not far away. Frightful noted the moisture in the air, the clouds, the wind, and the other migrating birds passing overhead. Blackbirds swarmed over the cattail swamp at the bottom of Hook Mountain. In the morning the sky was clear and blue. She perched in the top of the ash, waiting for the earth to warm and the wind to rise and carry her on her way. She took off about nine o'clock. "Peregrine!" a man on the top of Hook Mountain shouted with gusto. He was seated before a spotting scope.

飞得很远了。 它乘着盛行风，飞过熟悉的山河，飞出卡茨基尔山脉，进入了未知的领地。 它没有犹豫，也没有回头。 它一边飞一边记下沿途的景色——森林、河流、公路和城市。 一小时后，它就看见了前方的大西洋。 这片没有植被的辽阔海域告诉它，此路不通。 它降落在哈德逊河上方的一座突岩上，停在一棵孤零零的白蜡树上。 一只库氏鹰和两只红尾鵟就在不远处捕猎。 可怕留意着空气湿度、云、风，还有从头顶飞过的其他迁徙鸟类。 黑鸫成群飞过胡克山脚下的香蒲沼泽。 第二天清晨，天空湛蓝晴朗。 它停在白蜡树顶端，等着大地回暖、风起，载着它继续赶路。 大约九点，它起飞了。 "游隼！" 胡克山顶的一个男人兴奋地大喊。 他正坐在一台观鸟镜前。

"That makes forty peregrines for the month," said a woman sitting on a camp stool. She put a check beside "peregrine falcon" in the raptor counting book. The tor top was speckled with men and women who came to Hook Mountain in the autumn to count the birds of prey. Each year these people, like thousands of others, tallied raptors along the four migratory flyways in North America—the Atlantic, Mississippi, Central, and Pacific flyways. They counted because the birds of prey were losing ground in the fight for survival. By comparing their numbers each year, the counters could tell whether or not their efforts to ban pesticides and pass laws protecting the birds were working. The birds of prey were vital to the health of North America. The people on Hook Mountain cheered when Frightful went over. A peregrine was a thrill to see. The bird had been eliminated by DDT and pesticides in much of the United States in the forties, fifties, and sixties. Even now it was still a rare sight—a beautiful rare sight. Frightful's wings cut circles in the wind that sped her southeast toward the ocean. Abreast of New York City, she sensed she was off-course. Her

"这已经是这个月第四十只游隼了，"坐在野营凳上的女人说。 她在猛禽计数册里“游隼”那一项旁边打了个勾。 突岩顶上散落着不少男男女女，他们秋天来到胡克山统计猛禽的数量。 每年，这些人和成千上万其他爱好者一样，统计北美四条迁徙航道上的猛禽——分别是大西洋航道、密西西比航道、中部航道和太平洋航道。 他们统计是因为，猛禽的生存处境越来越艰难。 通过对比每年的数量，计数者就能判断，禁农药、推保护法的努力有没有效果。 猛禽对北美生态的健康至关重要。 可怕从头顶飞过时，胡克山上的人们欢呼起来。 能看见游隼实在太让人激动了。 二十世纪四五十年代到六十年代，DDT和各类杀虫剂让美国大部分地区的游隼销声匿迹。 哪怕到现在，游隼依然很罕见——一种美丽的罕见景象。 可怕的翅膀在风中划出圈，风推着它朝东南方向飞去海洋。 飞到与纽约市平行的位置时，它察觉到自己偏航了。 它的

internal compass and the increasing moisture in the air sent her westward. Rough air bounced her back and forth, but she found her longitude again over the New Jersey marshlands. She dropped down to rest on the post of a duck blind. A shotgun blasted. She took off, skimmed low over the tops of the sedges until she found a thermal, and rode it, ringing swiftly up, barely moving her wings as it carried her out of the range of the duck hunters" guns. Soaring, tipping, circling at the top of the thermal was Drum. "Creee, creee, creee," she called. Her first tiercel eyas answered with nestling talk, "Pseee," then adult talk, "Creee, creee, creee." They sped out of the thermal together and started down the coast. They flew extremely high, keeping the ocean on their left. Drum had taken this trip last year. He picked smooth winds between towers of clouds as he led Frightful through the sky. Frightful and Drum and several other birds of prey kept each other in sight. Traveling together, they

体内指南针和越来越湿润的空气指引它向西飞。 乱流把它吹得来回晃，但它在新泽西沼泽地上方重新找对了方位。 它降落在猎鸭隐蔽所的柱子上休息。 一声猎枪响了。 它立刻起飞，贴着薹草顶梢低飞，直到找到一股热气流，借着它快速盘旋上升，几乎不用扇翅膀就飞出了猎鸭人的射程。 在热气流顶端盘旋翻飞的是德拉姆。 "哩咦，哩咦，哩咦，"它叫道。 它的第一只雄性幼崽先用雏鸟的声音回应："唏咦"，接着换成成鸟的叫声："哩咦，哩咦，哩咦。" 它们一起飞出热气流，沿着海岸往南飞。 它们飞得极高，一直让海洋在自己左侧。 德拉姆去年走过这趟旅程。 它选好云团间平稳的风，领着可怕飞过天空。 可怕、德拉姆和其他好几只猛禽互相保持着视线。 结伴同行的它们

formed a sky club. Before long they came to know each other and passed on information about the weather and the terrain. The experienced ones knew to come down early before a storm. Others sensed turbulence approaching and took detours around destructive winds. Over Virginia a sudden gust of dry air pushed Frightful ahead of Drum. She had learned at Delhi that such a wind would be followed by a cold front. She flew faster to keep ahead of it. Six hundred miles from Hook Mountain, she came down on a utility pole on Cape Hatteras. Fifteen minutes later Drum joined her. Dropping out of the sky by twos and ones came the goshawk, the kestrel, the red-tailed, and the sharp-shinned—the bird club. They spread out over the vast wetland. Frightful looked down on black ducks, mallards, blue-winged teals, plovers, godwits, yellowlegs, sandpipers—all the migrating birds that loved wetlands. At the sight of a peregrine falcon they vanished. Frightful did not chase them. She was looking for pigeons and rats but actually was not very hungry. She was living on her migratory fat. Perched on the pole, she oiled her feathers, which had become dry at the high altitudes. Drum oiled

成立了一个天空俱乐部。 没过多久它们就互相认识，还互相分享天气和地形的信息。 有经验的鸟儿懂得要在暴风雨来临前早早降落。 其他鸟儿能察觉到气流扰动将至，会绕开破坏力极强的大风。 在弗吉尼亚上空，一阵突如其来的干气流把芙莱特推到了德拉姆前面。 她早就学到，这种风过后会跟着冷锋。 她飞得更快，好赶在冷锋前头。 在距离胡克山六百英里处，她降落在哈特拉斯角的一根电线杆上。 十五分钟后，德拉姆也来到了她身边。 两只一伙、单个独行的鸟儿陆续从天而降：苍鹰、红隼、红尾鵟、尖翅鹰——全都是这个鸟儿俱乐部的成员。 它们在广阔的湿地上分散开来。 芙莱特往下看去，看见了黑鸭、绿头鸭、蓝翅水鸭、鸻、塍鹬、黄脚鹬、矶鹬——全都是喜爱湿地的候鸟。 它们一看见游隼，就立刻消失不见了。 芙莱特并没有追赶它们。 她虽然在找鸽子和老鼠，其实并不怎么饿。 她靠迁徙时储存的脂肪供给能量。 她停在电线杆上，梳理润泽在高海拔变得干燥的羽毛。 德拉姆梳理