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THE SNOW GEESE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK William Fiennes | 200 pages | 07 Feb 2003 | Pan MacMillan | 9780330375795 | English | London, United Kingdom The Snow Goose (TV Movie ) - IMDb The Snow Goose is a simple, short written parable on the regenerative power of friendship and love, set against a backdrop of the horror of war. It documents the growth of a friendship between Philip Rhayader, an artist living a solitary life in an abandoned lighthouse in the marshlands of Essex because of his disabilities, and a young local girl, Fritha. The snow goose , symbolic of both Rhayader Gallico and the world itself, wounded by gunshot and many miles from home, is found by Fritha and, as the human friendship blossoms, the bird is nursed back to flight, and revisits the lighthouse in its migration for several years. As Fritha grows up, Rhayader and his small sailboat eventually are lost in the Dunkirk evacuation , having saved several hundred men. The bird, which was with Rhayader, returns briefly to the grown Fritha on the marshes. She interprets this as Rhayader's soul taking farewell of her and realizes she had come to love him. Afterwards, a German pilot destroys Rhayader's lighthouse and all of his work, except for one portrait Fritha saves after his death: a painting of her as Rhayader first saw her — a child, with the wounded snow goose in her arms. The Snow Goose was one of the O. Henry Prize Winners in Critic Robert van Gelder called it "perhaps the most sentimental story that ever has achieved the dignity of a Borzoi [prestige imprint of publisher Knopf] imprint. It is a timeless legend that makes use of every timeless appeal that could be crowded into it". A public library put it on a list of 'tearjerkers'. The female Snow Goose sometimes starts several scrapes before choosing the final location for her nest. She may lay the first egg within an hour of selecting the site. The creamy white eggs of Snow Geese stain easily. People can sometimes tell what order the eggs were laid in, just by the color of the shells the dirtiest shells belong to the oldest eggs. The female incubates the eggs and nestlings, spending 21 or more hours per day on the nest, while the male stands guard to defend females and nest sites against predators and other Snow Geese. Snow Geese chicks are well developed when they hatch, with open eyes and down-covered bodies that already show whether the adult will have white or dark plumage. Within a few days they are able to maintain a constant body temperature on their own. They grow very quickly, with the males outpacing the females. The young Snow Geese feed themselves, but are protected by both parents. After 42 to 50 days they can fly, but they remain with their family until they are 2 to 3 years old. Snow Geese make epic journeys by air, but they are impressive on foot, too. Within the first three weeks of hatching, goslings may walk up to 50 miles with their parents from the nest to a more suitable brood-rearing area. There is also a feral population in Scotland from which many vagrant birds in Britain seem to derive. In Central America , vagrants are frequently encountered during winter. The snow goose was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Anas caerulescens. The specimen had been collected in Hudson Bay. Two subspecies are recognised: [11]. White-morph birds are white except for black wing tips, but blue-morph geese have bluish-grey plumage replacing the white except on the head, neck and tail tip. The immature blue phase is drab or slate-gray with little to no white on the head, neck, or belly. Both snow and blue phases have rose-red feet and legs, and pink bills with black tomia "cutting edges" , giving them a black "grin patch". The colors are not as bright on the feet, legs, and bill of immature birds. The head can be stained rusty-brown from minerals in the soil where they feed. They are very vocal and can often be heard from more than a mile away. White- and blue-morph birds interbreed and the offspring may be of either morph. These two colors of geese were once thought to be separate species; since they interbreed and are found together throughout their ranges, they are now considered two color phases of the same species. The color phases are genetically controlled. The dark phase results from a single dominant gene and the white phase is homozygous recessive. When choosing a mate, young birds will most often select a mate that resembles their parents' coloring. If the birds were hatched into a mixed pair, they will mate with either color phase. The species is divided into two subspecies on the basis of size and geography. Size overlap has caused some to question the division. The larger subspecies, the greater snow goose C. It averages about 3. Blue-morph birds are rare among the greater snow geese and among eastern populations of the lesser. Long-term pair bonds are usually formed in the second year, although breeding does not usually start until the third year. Females are strongly philopatric, meaning they will return to the place they hatched to breed. Snow geese often nest in colonies. Nesting usually begins at the end of May or during the first few days of June, depending on snow conditions. The female selects a nest site and builds the nest on an area of high ground. The nest is a shallow depression lined with plant material and may be reused from year to year. After the female lays the first of three to five eggs, she lines the nest with down. The female incubates for 22 to 25 days, and the young leave the nest within a few hours of hatching. The young feed themselves, but are protected by both parents. After 42 to 50 days they can fly, but they remain with their family until they are two to three years old. Rare hybrids with the greater white-fronted goose , Canada goose , and cackling goose have been observed. Snow geese breed from late May to mid-August, but they leave their nesting areas and spend more than half the year on their migration to-and-from warmer wintering areas. The lesser snow goose travels through the Central Flyway , Mississippi Flyway , and Pacific Flyway across prairie and rich farmland to their wintering grounds on grassland and agricultural fields across the United States and Mexico, especially the Gulf coastal plain. The larger and less numerous greater snow goose travels through the Atlantic Flyway and winters on a relatively more restricted range on the Atlantic coastal plain. Traditionally, lesser snow geese wintered in coastal marsh areas where they used their short but strong bills to dig up the roots of marsh grasses for food. However, they have also since shifted inland towards agricultural areas, likely the cause behind the unsustainable population increase in the 20th century. This shift may help to contribute to increased goose survival rates, leading to overgrazing on tundra breeding grounds. Nature: Snow geese at the Finger Lakes - CBS News In the spring they fly north again. William Fiennes decided to go with them and to write about his travels. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Snow Geese , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Snow Geese. Jul 04, David R. The concept is wonderful: Fiennes, inspired by Gallico's "The Snow Goose" and a life changing illness, sets out to follow the migration of the Snow Goose chen caerulescens from wintering grounds in south central Texas to its breeding home on Baffin Island. It's a planes, trains, and automobiles story as he moves northward, always ahead of the geese. Unfortunately, it disappoints on two counts. Most importantly, the geese hardly show up. Fiennes is ultimately more attracted to his encounters wi The concept is wonderful: Fiennes, inspired by Gallico's "The Snow Goose" and a life changing illness, sets out to follow the migration of the Snow Goose chen caerulescens from wintering grounds in south central Texas to its breeding home on Baffin Island. Fiennes is ultimately more attracted to his encounters with people along the way, some quite eccentric, most of whom have no interest whatsoever in Snow geese nor his quest. And, the end of the road, Foxe Land in the tundra, there's no climax, no drama, no epiphanal moment. It's jolly ho, the trip is done, back to the UK for me! This is probably not the book for the die-hard birder but will suit for those fascinating by travel adventures in improbable places. However, Fiennes gets bogge 2. However, Fiennes gets bogged down in details. This is too much about the grind of travel and not enough about the natural spectacles he was searching for. And then when he gets up to the far north he eats snow goose. So anyway, I ended up just skimming this one for the birdwatching bits. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. View all 4 comments. Apr 19, Michael Livingston rated it it was amazing. I'd never heard of this before one of my favourite booksellers raved about it to me and it's immediately become one of my absolute favourites.

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