7 Disaster Leads To Survival

minutes won't matter." Frightful straightened up. Ducks were not prey. She was still Sam's falcon. Waterfowl did not interest her. "Cree, creeee, cree," Duchess cried. The Muscovy heard the falcon cry and flapped in terror. Calmly turning her back, Frightful took a bearing on the sun's position and beat her strong wings. She flew straight for the one mountain among thousands, the one tree among millions, and Sam. IN WHICH Disaster Leads to Survival

多久都没关系了。” 芙莱特直起了身子。 鸭子才不是她的猎物。 她依然是山姆的猎鹰。 她对水鸟一点兴趣都没有。 “唧，唧——，唧，”达奇斯叫道。 麝香鸭听到猎鹰的叫声，吓得使劲扑腾翅膀。 芙莱特从容转身，对着太阳定好方位，拍动起强健的翅膀。 她直直飞向千山中那座山，万林中那棵树，飞向山姆。 本章：灾难通向新生

The wind carried Frightful speeding down the side of White Man Mountain. As she came over a logging road, a man walked out of the leafless November woods. He was dressed in a tan jacket and pants and strode with a gait as free as Sam's. "Creee, creee, creee, car-reet." Frightful called Sam's name. With a swift wing beat she alighted above a transformer on an electric utility pole. The man was not Sam. She lifted her wings to fly. A wind gust knocked her off balance. She tipped, spread her flight feathers like fingers, and braced herself against two wires. Sparks sizzled and burst upward. A powerful electric current shot through Frightful. Her feathers burned. She could not move. The electricity held her prisoner. She passed out. Jon Wood saw Frightful get zapped. He grabbed a fallen branch, climbed a boulder under the utility pole, and tried to knock her off the wires. He brushed her, but could not dislodge her. Taking the long branch in both hands, he swept it back and forth. Frightful's left wing was pushed from the

风托着芙莱特，顺着白人山的山坡飞速向下滑翔。 她飞过一条运木路时，一个男人从十一月落尽叶子的树林里走了出来。 他穿着黄褐色的夹克和裤子，大步流星，步态和山姆一样自在。 “叽咿，叽咿，叽咿，山姆——。” 芙莱特在呼唤山姆的名字。 她快速扇了一下翅膀，落在电线杆的变压器上方。 这个男人不是山姆。 她抬起翅膀准备飞走。 一阵狂风把她吹得失去了平衡。 她身子一歪，张开飞羽像张开手指一样，撑在了两根电线上。 火花滋滋响着向上炸开。 强大的电流瞬间穿过芙莱特的身体。 她的羽毛被烧伤了。 她动不了了。 电流把她牢牢困住。 她昏了过去。 乔恩·伍德亲眼看见芙莱特被电击中。 他抓起一根落枝，爬上电线杆下的巨石，想把她从电线上打下来。 他碰到了她，却没法把她弄下来。 他双手握住长树枝，来回扫动。 芙莱特的左翅膀被扫离了

wire. The circuit was broken. She fell to the ground. Jon Wood picked her up and folded her wings to her body. He looked at her burned flight feathers. He saw her cloudy eyes. "A fabulous and rare peregrine," he mumbled, "and she's dead." He stroked her still-warm breast. "Another utility-pole disaster," he said to himself. Then went on, "I get so angry about this. It doesn't have to happen." Smoothing Frightful's seared feathers, he opened a large pocket in his jacket and placed her in it. He would report her death to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albany. They kept records of the endangered peregrine falcons. The birds, once down to zero in the East, were gradually making a comeback, thanks largely to a falconer, Heinz Meng. He had bred the first peregrines in captivity and, using an ancient technique called hacking, had been able to free them to the wild. Other falconers learned from him, and the peregrine began to recover. Jon thought of Heinz as he stood on the mountain road.

电线。 电路断了。 她摔到了地上。 乔恩·伍德抱起她，把她的翅膀贴在身体两侧拢好。 他看着她被烧伤的飞羽。 他看到她的眼睛浑浊不堪。 “这么漂亮珍稀的游隼，”他咕哝道，“竟然死了。” 他抚摸着她还温热的胸脯。 “又是电线杆惹的祸，”他自言自语道。 接着又说：“我真的太生气了。 这种事本就不该发生。” 他理了理芙莱特烤焦的羽毛，拉开夹克上的大口袋，把她放了进去。 他要把她的死报告给奥尔巴尼的美国鱼类和野生动物管理局。 他们记录着濒危游隼的相关信息。 东部的游隼曾经一度绝迹，现在逐渐恢复种群，这很大程度上要归功于驯鹰人海因茨·孟。 他首次人工繁育出游隼，还用一种叫“放归驯化”的古老技术，让它们重回野外生存。 其他驯鹰人跟着他学习，游隼的种群慢慢开始恢复。 乔恩站在山路上，想起了海因茨。

First it was DDT and other pesticides that killed the great peregrines, he mused. Now it's death on utility poles. His warm brown eyes narrowed. "This does it!" he said to himself. "All the utility companies have to do is lower one wire so the birds can't touch those two parallel hot lines and complete a circuit. One little adjustment—that's all—and thousands of these great birds would live." He opened his pocket and peered down at Frightful, thinking, I've written the utility- company manager so many times, my fingers hurt. Today I'm calling the company president. He strode on down the mountain to the road where he had left his car. Saddened and angry, he drove home, parked near his barn, and walked to a large bird mews. "Hello, Sammy," he said to a magnificent bald eagle. Sammy was recovering from an accident with an automobile. "Kak, kak, ka, kleeeek," the bird replied. Jon smiled and looked from the handsome eagle to his own home. He was proud of it. As a young man he

他暗想，一开始是DDT和其他杀虫剂害死了这些了不起的游隼。 现在又成了电线杆夺走它们的生命。 他温暖的棕眼睛眯了起来。 “够了！” 他对自己说。 “电力公司只要把一根电线调低，鸟儿就碰不到两根平行火线，不会形成通路了。 只需要一点点调整——就这么简单，就能救下成千上万只这种了不起的鸟儿。” 他拉开口袋低头看向芙莱特，心想，我给电力公司经理写了无数次信，写得手指都疼了。 今天我要直接打给公司总裁。 他大步走下山，回到他停车的路上。 他既伤心又愤怒，开车回了家，把车停在谷仓附近，走向一座大型鸟舍。 “你好，萨米，”他对着一只雄壮的白头海雕打招呼。 萨米之前遭遇了车祸，正在休养恢复。 “嘎，嘎，嘎，嘎——，”海雕叫着回应他。 乔恩笑了，目光从这只英武的海雕移到自己的家。 他为这座家感到骄傲。 年轻的时候，他

had built it himself on acres of field and forest deep in the Catskill Mountains. The house was dug into the hillside to conserve heat. It was shingled with handmade shakes. Jon had trained a falcon to hunt with him. He had planted his own vegetables. When his land was flourishing, he went back home and married a young woman named Susan. He took her to his mountain with some apprehension. "Do you like it?" he had asked. "I want to live here all my life," she answered. As Jon worked the land and flew his falcon, he saw how important the raptors were to the environment. Some kept the excess birds under control; some kept the rabbits from destroying his garden; others cleaned up the rats, mice, and voles. He studied and became a master falconer with a license from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He taught his raptors to fly free and come back to the lure, and the next thing he knew, he and Susan were visiting schools with their birds to tell the children of the importance of the birds of prey. Jon Wood paused before opening the door to his house. He looked out over the silent white

在卡茨基尔山脉深处的一大片田野和森林里，亲手建起了这座房子。 房子依山坡挖建而成，能够保存热量。 屋顶铺着手工制作的木瓦。 乔恩训练过一只猎鹰和他一起打猎。 他还自己种植蔬菜。 等他的园子打理得欣欣向荣，他回老家娶了名叫苏珊的年轻姑娘。 他带着些许不安，把她带回了自己的山里。 “你喜欢这里吗？” 他当时问。 “我想一辈子都住在这儿，”她回答说。 乔恩一边种地，一边驯鹰，渐渐发现猛禽对环境有多重要。 有些猛禽控制过量鸟类的数量，有些阻止兔子毁坏菜园，还有些清除大大小小的老鼠和田鼠。 他潜心学习，成为资深驯鹰师，拿到了美国鱼类和野生动物管理局颁发的执照。 他教猛禽自由飞翔后回到诱饵旁，后来他和苏珊带着鸟儿去学校，给孩子们讲猛禽的重要性。 乔恩·伍德打开家门前，停住了脚步。 他望向外面寂静的白色

mountains and braced himself to tell Susan the bad news. "Susan," he said as he walked into the kitchen, where she was feeding an owl. "Another zapped peregrine." He reached into his pocket. "Hey!" Frightful was moving. Astonished, he lifted her up and rested her on the palm of his hand. She looked at him out of bright eyes. Jon grinned in disbelief. "Susan," he said. "She's not dead. I can't believe it. She | was zapped, burned, fried on a utility pole." "Oh, Jon," said Susan, coming closer. "She looks awful. We should take her to the vet." "Let's wait," he said. "She looks amazingly perky. We'll jess her and I'll check her out." Susan opened a cabinet and took out a pair of leather straps. They were jesses. Falconers for three millennia in e Asia and Europe had put the exact same kind of straps on the legs of their falcons, hawks, and eagles. The jesses were held in the fingers or clipped to a leash to keep the birds from departing. Jon stroked Frightful's wings and breast, then held her feet in his hand and her body along his

他靠着山站稳，下定决心要告诉苏珊这个坏消息。 "苏珊，" 他一边说一边走进厨房，苏珊正在厨房里喂一只猫头鹰。 "又一只游隼被电击中了。" 他把手伸进口袋里。 "嘿！" 怖怖动了起来。 他惊讶地把她捧起来，放在自己的掌心上。 她睁着明亮的眼睛看着他。 乔恩难以置信地咧开嘴笑了。 "苏珊，" 他说。 "她还没死。 我真不敢相信。 她被电线杆电到，都烤焦了。" "噢，乔恩，" 苏珊说着走了过来。 "她看着情况很糟。 我们得带她去看兽医。" "先等等看，" 他说。 "她看起来精神居然还不错。 我们给她系上脚绊，我再检查一下。" 苏珊打开柜子，拿出了一对皮制的绑带。 这就是猎鹰用的脚绊。 三千年来，东亚和欧洲的驯鹰人都会给他们的猎鹰、鹰和雕系上一模一样的绑带。 人们用手指捏着脚绊，或是把它扣在牵绳上防止鸟儿飞走。 乔恩抚摸了怖怖的翅膀和胸脯，然后握住她的脚，让她的身体顺着他的