This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Penguins are cartoons, emoticons, animated films, children’s books (though owls really take first place here), sports teams, a book publisher, and a Batman villain (a rare example of penguin negativity, though Burgess Meredith did bring an endearing attitude to his 1960’s TV portrayal).
It was a pleasure to make these observations at the same time I was reading The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think , Jennifer Ackerman’s new book about the diversity and complexity of bird behavior.
It’s a big subject that has been embraced by biologists Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman in Bird Talk: An Exploration of Avian Communication, a largish, book recently published by Comstock Publishing Associates, an imprint of Cornell University Press. It encompasses movement and plumage and even smell. And, that’s it.
Bird Day is a lovely, little jewel of a book. Hauber and artist Tony Angell fulfills this goal beautifully and was the factor that motivated me to review this book. The essays also touch on conservation, though less that the amount I would have assumed would be in a book that is part of an “Earth Day” series.
Taking inspiration from Matthiessen’s 1967 book (long out of print), which combined his natural history essays with species accounts by Ralph S. It is pointedly not an identification guide, though there is a lot of identification information in it, and it is not a coffee table book, though every page is illustrated.
Life Along the Delaware Bay: Cape May, Gateway to a Million Shorebirds , by Lawrence Niles, Joanna Burger, and Amanda Dey, is a book with a mission. The numbers, as detailed in this book, are alarming: the horseshoe crab harvest grew from less than 100,000 in 1992 to over 2.5 million in the late 1990’s. Should the gulls be controlled?
There is a long list of articles and books on how to feed birds in your yard. So, I was happy to see the publication of a book on all aspects of wild bird feeding—history, culture, and economics. It is a serious book with a friendly attitude. There was cleaning, lots of cleaning of feeders and yard. And squirrels.
This shouldn’t have to be stated, especially in a book on bird evolution by an evolutionary biologist with a Ph.D. But, ‘synthesis’ is a dry word, and this is a book with a quiet yet firm personality underlying its words. The book is smartly organized into 12 chapters. This is a book that requires attention.
Journeys With Penguins: Tracking the World’s Most Extreme Penguin is a different type of penguin book. It’s all about the improbable intersection of human beings and Emperor Penguins, and if I can’t make it to an Emperor Penguin colony (highly unlikely), reading this book has been the next best thing. Author Gerald L.
Her lively block prints adorn calendars, note cards, puzzles, and children’s books, very much in the popular tradition of beloved minimalist Charley Harper. It’s a fun book, offering ideas for projects and, most importantly for me, new ways to observe birds and their natural world.
Experiments in the field (the famed Asa Wright Nature Center veranda) involving Bananaquits and bananas came up with numbers ranging from 7 to 16, but a tanager always came along to interfere with Bananaquits’ noisy appreciation of their namesake fruit. There are two editions of the Kenefick book, the field guide. I was confused.
It’s the warbler that is often the last unchecked species on birders’ life lists and, whether you list or not, for most of us observing it is a once in a lifetime experience. A nest wasn’t found until 1903, which set off a craze for Kirtland’s Warbler skins, nests, and eggs. photo by Lynn C.
the book follows through mating and egg-laying, incubation and hatching, and the rearing of three young to successful fledging. As an experiment, I also ran this book by a non-birding friend. Reviews Bald Eagle book review' (with a view of the Capitol, no less!)
Platypus have bills, bats and bugs can fly, and reptiles lay eggs, but only birds have feathers. Despite feathers being such a large and essential aspect of birdness I did not know much about them, at least until I read Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle , the fascinating new book by Thor Hansen. Feathers as toothpicks?
Her experiences are framed within the larger scientific histories how once common species become endangered, and of how people and organizations have strategized and explored controversial paths to bring their numbers up and nurture them till they fill our skies. My only wish is that the book included photographs.
A breeding bird atlas is a special kind of book. For birders, it’s the extremely large book, shelved in a place where it can’t crush the field guides, used to research the history of a bird in their area. The resulting book, 616 pages in length, 6.4
Once again Pied Oystercatcher breeding season is fast approaching in Broome and we can expect the first batch of eggs to be laid within the next few weeks. We have monitored a 23 kilometre section of beach in Broome for several years now and have discovered that they are not as site faithful or as monogamous as you read in text books.
And if you take this phrase, “stamps in weathered passports,” my interpretation is that the experiences from travel are the “stamps” as sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures, on your “passport,” or soul. However, I cannot stop thinking about my name written in that book.
Kevin Ebi is a professional nature photographer whose work has appeared in a variety of magazines and books, including National Wildlife , Smithsonian , Outdoor Photographer , and Lonely Planet and Moon travel guides. Year of the Eagle is his third book. To pre-order your copy, visit the site I have set up to promote the book.
Where does the female Emperor Penguin go after she has produced that one egg and handed it over to the male for incubation? And, what about that female Emperor Penguin, who disappears for two months after handing her one egg over to her mate? Bruce Pearson is the book illustrator. Technology to the rescue!
Based on his own experiences teaching ornithology to high school students in California, he believes that high school student often just need the spark of an interesting elective class that fills a graduation requirement. .” No publisher wants to publish a book that can’t be sold.
Bird of Prey (not to be confused with the upcoming comic book film Birds of Prey ) tells the story of the Philippine Eagle in layers of time and place. Today, we know a little more, such as the fact that an eagle couple produces one egg every two years, but numbers remain low, too low. 1980’s Filmstrip, photo by Eric Liner.
It isn’t in your book of seabirds? (It But, to Elizabeth Gehrman, the author of Rare Birds: The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man who Brought it Back from Extinction, and to David Wingate, the man who Gehrman profiles in this excellent book, the Bermuda Petrel is always the cahow. You’ve never heard of the cahow?
The opening beautifully encapsulates the essence of the book. This is the story of Fox’s experiences on board the Achiever, the research vessel of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. She is one of the best nature writers I’ve encountered in recent years, able to paint experiences with emotional immediacy.
The island is teeming with so many birds that their eggs and young chicks were once harvested for food. We had the foresight to book the Three Islands Seabird Seafari in advance, a thrilling journey where we would see the seabirds around Lamb, Craigleith, and Bass Rock from a small inflatable boat.
The birds are so busy, finding sticks, flying with sticks, fixing nests, tending to eggs in nests, preening feathers, touching bills, feeding chicks, refusing to feed chicks. This was the High Island Experience, I was told. And all amidst many leaves and many branches in fading light. It was amazing.
Be warned, though, that I just finished this terrific book , so your stories better be good! So on Sunday morning he looked at Big Egg Marsh, which has a larger amount of saltmarsh habitat. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment. What was your best bird of the weekend?
That summer of 1938, when he was ten years old, Cade read of two brothers, Frank and John Craighead, who wrote of their experiences with falcons in National Geographic. “It was all in books,” he would later admit. It was there where the first glimpse of his future began. The concern possessed him. I knew no falconers.
Birdie books will obviously take precedence, but a well written, lavishly illustrated guide is a thing of beauty whatever the discipline. A book mark was very useful to make the glossary quickly accessible. Did you know for example that some species of bee are cleptoparasites , exploiting the nests of other species for their own eggs.
The good news is that if you know someone who needs to be schooled on all of the sordid details of factory farming, and appreciates good writing, this is a great book. Also, if, like me, you know someone who appreciates the things we do with language to mask the reality of our behavior, this is a great book. Not great, but good.
We don't really see gut instinct discussed in many books or blogs because it's our inner dialog, our inner voice and world. To make a great omelet you've just gotta break eggs. An Experiment. Tony’s most recent book is “Combo Prospecting.” Trust your gut. Jack Canfield used to say, "Feel the fear and do it anyway."
This would have allowed you to summarize your experience in sentences such as “A total of 98 boluses regurgitated by 52 chicks aged 1 day to 11 days after hatching form the sample and are shown to contain 323 food items.” Women who like jacanas will probably also like Spotted Redshanks. But maybe that is actually a good thing.
Over at Animal Rights and AntiOppression , we’ve been discussing tactics and sharing our thoughts and experiences about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to advocacy. Much of the book deals with topics vegans have likely pondered, likely frequently. The answer, throughout the entire 300 pages, essentially is: Because they do.
There will be no pies or cakes that were made with milk that was meant for calves, or eggs that represent dead male chicks , forced molting, debeaking and other mutilations and cruelties. Justice for beings who look very different from us but who, like us, experience pleasure and pain, boredom and frustration.
The two most common food allergies or food intolerances in pets are: Protein including chicken, beef, pork, fish, eggs and soy. If your pet experiences any of the symptoms above, they may have developed a food allergy. Book a visit with your veterinarian immediately. Grains like wheat or corn. Upset stomach. Refusal to eat.
Birders are always happy to see a turtle or tortoise, and there are times of the year when my social media feeds are sprinkled with photos of turtles beings removed from roads or crawling to land to lay eggs. Though this is a book written for non-scientists, some of this material may initially intimidate readers.
It’s a unique bird, even its scientific name is wonderful, so it’s not surprising that Gerard Gorman, Woodpecker Expert Supreme, has written a book all about the species. This is a very easy book to read. The latter is a nonmigratory, African endemic with a scattered, limited distribution. It’s an open question.
from University of Miami in 1966 and has written over 75 scientific and popular papers and books, including Shorebirds of North America: The Photographic Guide. Retirement apparently means writing this book and its companion volume, Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West (published by Princeton Univ. More on this later.)
The book is produced by WILDGuides, a nonprofit publishing organization that joined forces with Princeton University Press last year to create the Princeton WILDGuides imprint. Besides the urgent need to identify my dragonflies, I was interested in hands-on experience using these field guides.
The first eggs are usually laid at the end of May or sometimes in the first week of June, but this can vary depending on the weather. Both sexes incubate, with the eggs taking an average of 19 or 20 days to hatch. This book is based on a long-running study of Swifts nesting in a tower at Oxford University’s Museum of Science.
Let us for once judge a book by its cover, and take a thorough look at a Black-headed Gull in breeding plumage. How do I know of their Gothic moods when they have hidden them so well in an egg-white shell of conformity? Spring is the perfect season to take this book for a spin! Ring-billed Gull - yes indeed. Thanks, Wikipedia
So, I was very excited when I heard that Rick Wright was writing a book about sparrows, the first treatment of North American sparrows since 2001, possibly the first book about sparrows of North America, depending on your definition of that geographic area. Scope of Book. Read the Introduction! I like it.
The Zoo episode focuses on two Pink Pigeon couples: The Stud and Serendipity, a male and female that the zoo people hope will mate and produce a viable egg, and Thelma and Louise, a same-sex pair-bonded couple who the zoo people hope will incubate the egg and nurture the chick. Because, Ms. On the WCS web page, Ms.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 30+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content