Michael Forsberg

Over the past two decades, Ranchlands (with properties in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming) has grown from a family cattle ranching business to one of the great working ranches of the West. Its grassroots model honors and embraces ranching and cowboy traditions while working tirelessly to sustain and conserve the land for future generations. Illustrated with galleries of stunning images from a variety of photographers who have worked or spent time on Ranchlands properties over the years, Ranchlandsthe seasonal rhythms of the ranch and the daily lives of its male and female cowboys, the flow of herds of cattle and bison on the open range, working horses, and the breathtaking sweep of the Western landscape. For all of us drawn to the mystique of the American West, the grit and poetry of a hard day s work on the land, and the magic of cowboys, welcome to Ranchlands.

The Great Plains were once among the greatest grasslands on the planet. But as the United States and Canada grew westward, the Plains were plowed up, fenced in, overgrazed, and otherwise degraded. Today, this fragmented landscape is the most endangered and least protected ecosystem in North America. But all is not lost on the prairie. Through lyrical photographs, essays, historical images, and maps, this beautifully illustrated book gets beneath the surface of the Plains, revealing the lingering wild that still survives and whose diverse natural communities, native creatures, migratory traditions, and natural systems together create one vast and extraordinary whole. Three broad geographic regions are covered in detail in Great Plains, evoked in the unforgettable and often haunting images taken by Michael Forsberg. Between the fall of 2005 and the winter of 2008, he traveled roughly 100,000 miles across twelve states and three provinces, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, to complete the photographic fieldwork for this project, underwritten by the Nature Conservancy. Complementing his images and firsthand accounts are essays by Great Plains scholar David Wishart and acclaimed writer Dan O'Brien. Each section of the book begins with a thorough overview by Wishart, while O'Brien - a wildlife biologist and rancher as well as a writer - uses his powerful literary voice to put the Great Plains into a human context, connecting their natural history with man's uses and abuses. The Great Plains are a dynamic but often forgotten landscape - overlooked, undervalued, misunderstood, and in desperate need of conservation. This book helps lead the way forward, informing and inspiring readers to recognize the wild spirit and splendor of this irreplaceable part of the planet.

Rising from sandbars on the Platte River with clarion calls, the sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) feels the urgency of spring migration. Elegant, noble, and spiritual, the sandhill crane is one of the most ancient of all birds. More than a half-million strong, flying in squadrons, these majestic creatures point northward to their Arctic and sub-Arctic breeding ranges. Theirs is an epic story of endurance through the ages. With 153 stunning color photographs, On Ancient Wings presents sandhill cranes in their wild but increasingly compromised habitats today. Over the course of five years, Michael Forsberg documented the tall gray birds in habitats ranging from the Alaskan tundra, to the arid High Plains, from Cuban nature preserves to suburban backyards. With an eye for beauty and an uncommon persistence, the author documents the cranes' challenges to adapt and survive in a rapidly changing natural world. Forsberg argues that humankind, for its own sake, should secure the cranes' place in the future. On Ancient Wings intertwines the lives of cranes, people, and their common places to tell an ancient story at a time when sandhill cranes and their wetland and grassland habitats face daunting prospects.