In The Peacocks of Baboquivari (1983) septuagenarian Fisk offered a
considerable amount of solid information concerning the netting,
banding, tallying and measuring of birds in an Arizona valley
amongst meditations on Widowhood, persons and places and the
cosmos, and when she handed a new bird she was "the luckiest widow
in the world." But what's this? Here is Fisk in the tiny
principality of Belize on an ornithological expedition - in 28 days
of bodily and considerable psychic discomfort. "I have been banding
birds too long, I am tired of it, I need a new career." There's
precious little about avian matters here, but plenty to learn about
one person's feelings about being old, manless, and beset with
severe family problems (never specified). Fisk does relate some
earlier bird work - the problems in handling birds going for the
red with beak and claw; mist nets; happy sightings; transects (a
method of estimating bird populations); and lecture miscellany. But
as Fisk soldiers on in the compound, in a welter of damp clothes,
heat and primitive accommodations, she wrestles with the many
doubts and miseries of an uncooperative body, painful memories of
loss (her husband's death) - and after birding, whither? As for
immortality and the Big D: "What carries us through our days. . .is
what life gives us. . .When we are gone the book is closed, it goes
on a shelf." It takes courage to be alone, "to stand out in the
round, hair tousled, stockings twisted to be seen and like - or
disliked - for what you are." She remembers friends and adventures
in far places, and all the men, young and old, she's loved
(platonically). Of course there was one True Love, but "a woman
does notice the men who walk in and out of her front door." At the
close, Fisk heads firmly for "regeneration" and hints of pastures
new and the stir of challenge. Rambling, often testy, ruminations
on the problems of aging with true grit, which nets a few bristly
home truths. (Kirkus Reviews)
Erma Fisk, known to her friends as Jonnie, was a contented
housewife until the sudden death of her husband. Mostly by accident
(she claims) she became an amateur ornithologist and naturalist,
winning awards as her horizons expanded to include research and
birdbanding duties from Maine to Peru. On one occasion, in her
early seventies, she lived alone in a remote cabin in Arizona. The
Peacocks of Baboquivari was her highly acclaimed chronicle of that
experience. Parrots Wood is a journal of another expedition, a
month in Belize, Central America, spent on tropical research. While
recounting her day-to-day experiences, Fisk reminisces on earlier
times in her life. With honesty that brings tears as well as
laughter, she writes of her life as a series of doors to be opened,
and some to be shut. Irritated but undaunted by her eighty years,
she continues to say yes to life s challenges and encourages us to
do so too."
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