This practical, straightforward guide to some of the most commonly seen birds in southern Africa is aimed at beginner birders, or even juniors. Less daunting than a full-blown field guide, it’s handy and accessible, combining simple text with clear artwork and photographs to introduce 300 of the region’s easy-to-see birds. For each bird the book offers: simple text, including how to ‘find it’, ‘identify it’ and ‘understand it’; colour images, both illustrations and photographs; a distribut...

J. A. Baker’s extraordinary classic of British nature writingDespite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles, The Peregrine is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J A Baker spent a long winter looking and writing about the visitors from the uplands – peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them.Including original diaries from which The Peregrin...

"The Song of the Cardinal" is a fascinating story of the life of a redbird, or Kentucky cardinal, as it is popularly called, who is born in the valley of the Wabash. The author possesses the soul of an artist and a poet, which enables her to invest the story with the charm of a rich and vivid imagination; while her knowledge of the habits and peculiarities of the redbird and the love she feels for the cardinal family impart a living interest to her work that makes the reader enter into the...

A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Indonesia is the best, most comprehensive photographic guide to the birds of Indonesia.Because of its vast size and geographical location, Indonesia has the world's most diverse avifauna. It boasts of more than 1,600 species—of which 235 rare birds are only found in Indonesia—making it the world's number one travel destination for bird-watching.This bird field guide covers a total of 912 species, including most ...

The world’s parrots in one convenient field guideFrom the macaws of South America to the cockatoos of Australia, parrots are among the most beautiful and exotic birds in the world—and among the most endangered. This stunningly illustrated, easy-to-use field guide covers all 356 species and well-differentiated subspecies of parrots, and is the only guide organized by geographical distribution—Australasian, Afro-Asian, and neotropical. It features 146 superb color pl...

Caw of the Wild is an in-depth exploration into the intriguing and complex behavior of one of North America's most intelligent, but often reviled, birds-the American Crow.As a passionate observer, author Barb Kirpluk shares her extraordinary and fascinating findings while tracking three urban crow families through their daily existence. By befriending the birds and gaining their trust, Kirpluk shares many observations on subjects such as:The language of crows...

Birds of Hawaii is a concise guide to Hawaiian birdwatching.The book is divided into three sections: "Native Birds", "Stray Variants to the Hawaiian Islands" and "Imported Birds." Each bird is identified by its scientific name, its common name(or names), and in the case of native birds, by its Hawaiian name. These designations are followed by a description of the bird's essential characteristics, its habitat, its distinctive song or cry, and its habits. The descriptions ar...

Birds and bird lore provide a fascinating window onto our social and cultural history, and can tell us much about our changing relationship with the British landscape, our people and society.We Brits love our birds. They hold a special place in our hearts – whether it's the sound of birdsong on a spring morning, the sight of a Barn Owl hunting on a summer's evening, or a Robin perched on our garden spade. In this book, Stephen Moss focusses on some of our most beloved and charismat...

China possesses many of the most interesting and beautiful bird species in the world. In total, the country is home to more than 1300 bird species which comprise more than 13% of all bird species. This book serves as an introduction to the rich bird life of China for the vast majority of the Chinese population which resides in the eastern half of the country and all those who are interested in birds, wildlife or the natural world in general.This book serves as an introduction to th...

This book examines many examples of the nocturnal behaviour of birds.For many people, watching and studying birds is exclusively a day time activity. However, for many birds twilight and night time are not a barrier to useful activity. It is true that very few birds are exclusively nocturnal, but many birds which are active by day also conduct limited, and often crucial, activities after dusk.Examples range from the occasional night feeding of wildfowl and ...

This antique text contains a detailed yet accessible treatise on bird flight and how to identify birds based on how they fly. This book is intended principally for the ordinary bird-lovers who, without being ornithologists, are interested in bird life and look with wonder at birds in flight wishing to know more of how they fly and why their flight differs so much from species to species. The perfect handbook for amateur bird-watchers, 'Wing-Tips' constitutes a great addition to any collect...

In this short piece Thorpe discusses the Woodcock, a delectable dish in the mid nineteenth century. This piece highlights both knowledge of the bird and thought on hunting and wildlife preservation (or lack thereof) contemporary to the time. Thomas Bangs Thorpe 1815-1878 was an American antebellum humorist, painter, illustrator, and author best known for the short story "The Big Bear of Arkansas", which was first published in the periodical Spirit of the Times in 1841.