The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck
A Journey into the Himalayas and Down the Brahmaputra
-
-
3.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $3.99
-
- $3.99
Publisher Description
Fifty-two years after the pink-headed duck was last seen in the wild, Rory Nugent set off for India in search of this exceptionally rare bird. In Calcutta he prowled the fowl market, where a few of the ducks used to appear during the Raj. Traveling on to Delhi, he was befriended by a Cambridge-educated smuggler, and he learned of remote regions to the north where the duck might be found. In Sikkim, following the trail of a Yeti, he became lost in the Valley of Bliss and nearly imprisoned inside a forest of rhododendrons, each the size of a ranch house. Making his way to Assam, he bought a 13-foot skiff and paddled the Brahmaputra River from Burma to Bangladesh, with stops on an island, considered to be Kali’s left breast, and at a Tantrist temple, where he stumbled on a grisly ritual in a graveyard. In a secluded marsh along the river he may have spotted the world’s rarest duck.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The pink-headed duck, last sighted in 1935, is believed by most naturalists to be extinct, but rumors that it might be hiding in the marshlands of northeast India prompted Nugent, an adventurer from Massachusetts, to embark on a quest for the bird. After unsuccessfully searching Calcutta's fowl markets, he applied for a permit to travel on the Brahmaputra River, where the duck was more likely to be found. Awaiting permission, he had three months to wander, during which he encountered plotters against the Tibetan government, met leaders of Gurkha's independence movement and tracked a yeti in Sikkim. When Nugent finally attained the permit, he invited a venturesome Indian, Shankar, to share his voyage and the pair paddled a 12-foot skiff down the Brahmaputra, from a Burmese border village to Bangladesh. Myriad species of wildlife were sighted, though not the pink-headed duck. But no matter, at least not for the reader, who will thoroughly enjoy this saga of adventure for its rollicking entertainment. Photos not seen by PW .
