What better place could you have for a nature mystery than a wildlife refuge? Two boys and two girls, age 9 to 12, who live on the refuge, return home from school to find that two rare trumpeter swans disappeared from their favorite nesting place. A few bloody feathers are the only clue.

An official search is carried on but dropped for lack of evidence. The children, though, keep going on the hunt for the missing birds and use their ingenuity and knowledge of nature in some exciting and unusual ways. Kite flying comes into the plot, too, in a unique manner.

The author has won a nation-wide audience of youngsters with her easy-to-read nature mysteries. All of them are based on authentic scientific facts and intensive research, and are really suspenseful reading, too.

From the dust jacket