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Full Description
Following Edward Wilson into the
Unknown, Dr Edward Wilson English Polar Explorer, Ornithologist, Physician and
artist died in Antarctica in 1912.
The discovery of a bird painting
by Edward Wilson, who died with Scott on their return from the South Pole, hit
the headlines in 2017. The bird was a dead treecreeper, an insignificant
inhabitant of European woodland. Why was it there? This author had carried a
treecreeper photo in his wallet for seven years after emigrating to New Zealand
in 1960, to remind him of home. The coincidence led to a search of Wilson's
portfolio, producing 150 paired images; many were weird - grooves on a bird's
toenails? Dingle beach, Ireland; same time of day, same tide level, directly
into a red sun?
Coincidences in their characters
came next: both learned art from their parents, at university they looked and
dressed like twins, graduated with first class honours in Natural History, won
prizes in diving, taught Sunday schools, and worked with teams
investigating grouse declines in
Scotland. Following in Wilson's footsteps leads to a new appreciation of the
necessity to understand things; to find reasons for beauty, music, art, and
poetry; philosophy, religion, and the occult. Can we solve the problem of
finding any acceptable future for humanity?
John Flux the author of this book was born 1934 in
Maymyo, Burma; moved to Channel Islands, UK, 1939 -1940; Scotland 1940-1960. At
school (Mackie Academy, Stonehaven) no biology was taught, but in the final
year 2 hours every Friday was spent on Hamlet. After a BSc and PhD at Aberdeen
university, John joined Ecology Division DSIR in 1960 to study hares at night.
To occupy the day, a starling study began in 1970. Apart from papers on these,
as an old-style naturalist he has published on trout, grouse, swallows,
thrushes, blackbirds, wallabies, butterflies, cats, pigeons, possums, rats;
fleas, ticks, and seed burrs carried; leaf shapes and colour, tree-trunk
diameter, by-the-wind sailors, bird-nest/plant mutualism, dandelions, lichens,
wool-carder bees, harriers on road-kill, colour-blindness, moth evolution, bird
spacing, and "Biogeographic theory and the number and habitat of
moas".
