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Shadow Hunters: The Nest Gatherers of Tiger Cave

Eric Valli and Diane Summers. 1990. 112 pp., 69 color photos. Large format book 15 1/2x 11 1/2. The original Eastman Kodak/Thomasson Grant hardback first edition, printed in Italy. ISBN - 0-934738-73-4 $24.95 hb

Spectacular color photographs fill this coffee table book documenting a fascinating way of life within the vast sea caves scattered along Thailand's southwestern coast. Here men practice an ancestral craft: the harvesting of the principal ingredient of bird's nest soup. Risking 400-ft falls, these nimble hunters clamber barefoot up a web of bamboo poles and vines lashed to stalactites to reach delicate nests for which Hong Kong restaurateurs will pay up to $1,000 a pound.

Treasured for their rarity and nutritional value, edible bird's nests are sold in Chinese communities throughout the world. The swiftlets that build them are among the few avian species to fly in total darkness by using echolocation to find their way to roosts in the heights of enormous caverns as far as two miles into labyrinthine tunnels.

In both their photographs and their text, Valli and Summers capture the unwavering concentration and courage of men who have passed their singular skills and lore from father to son for generations. Through astonishingly beautiful and haunting images, Shadow Hunters tells the story of men who venture "wherever the birds fly."

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Missing Book Descriptions