Flights Against the Sunset by Kenn Kaufman

Author:Kenn Kaufman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

This was no time for dry details of ornithology. My subject matter would have to come from that frontier where the world of birds intersects with the world of the humans who pursue them.

The Ghost in the Station

T WELVE MILES INLAND from the northern rim of South America, two-thirds of a mile above the level of the sea, the monstrous old building of Rancho Grande stares back vacantly into history.

Its location is not the least of its mysteries. The site was chosen by Juan Vicente Gómez, the last dictator of Venezuela. Why he picked a steep jungle hillside in the coastal range for the construction of a huge, gloomy, three-story stone mansion, no one knew. When the dictator's death ended his reign in 1935, the workmen dropped their tools and walked away, leaving the massive building not quite completed. No one wanted to finish the job.

But the more enlightened government that followed had a better idea. They designated a huge tract around it as a national park and put the unfinished building of Rancho Grande to use as a biological field station. Naturalists came here from many parts of the world, taking advantage of this convenient place to experience the rich diversity of the tropics. Most notable among these naturalists was the great William Beebe, who spent several field seasons at Rancho Grande, studying the diverse and abundant nature that was right outside the door.

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