I don't know much about the prairie birds Herriot describes. In fact, I had never heard of a pipit until I read this book. However, up in the parkland area of Manitoba where I grew up the meadowlark was a constant source of joy each spring. I didn't realize how much I missed that when I moved to Winnipeg until one spring day when I was on my way into a meeting at a hall on the edge of the city. As I stepped out of the car, my head full of the details of the meeting (which I was chairing), I heard that unmistakable call and my heart lifted. For a few moments I forgot the meeting and just revelled in the sound and the smells and the breeze blowing past my cheek. That occasion was at least 20 years ago and yet I recalled it vividly when I read Herriot's description of the meadowlark.

Herriot refers often to the "canopy of sound" that early explorers discovered when they first came to the prairies. I want to experience that. About halfway through the book I was quite depressed by all the reports of falling bird counts and I thought that it was too late for me or anyone else to experience the canopy of sound. Even at the end of the book, Herriot is not reassuring about saving all the birds but some have started to come back. He even mentions some burrowing owls being found in Manitoba near Spruce Woods Park years after they had apparently disappeared from the province. So maybe, just maybe, with the encouragement of champions like Trevor Herriot, we can bring back a semblance of the "canopy of sound". I'm certainly going to source out meat grown on grassland as my small start.

I think this book is as important to our understanding of human impact on nature as Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring" was when it came out in 1962. As Wikipedia says about The Silent Spring "The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement." Maybe Grass, Sky, Song will help launch a new commitment to environmental management. ( )

http://www.fromseedtobloom.com/2010/11/14/grass-sky-song/ ( )