Showing 1–12 of 638 results
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Avian Cognition: Exploring the Intelligence, Behavior, and Individuality of Birds
Artist/Author: Herrmann, Debra$252.00 Add to cartUnlike any other book, Avian Cognition thoroughly examines avian intelligence, behavior, and individuality. Preferences, choices, motivation, and habits of species, flocks, and individual birds are discussed and compared. Avian Cognition investigates who birds are and why they do what they do. Daily, seasonal, and play activities, creativity, reasoning abilities, problem-solving skills, social interaction, life stages, and communication patterns are described, and a distinction is made between vocalizations that are learned and those that are inherited. The behavior and intelligence of both wild and pet birds is compared, and unlike other books, entire chapters are devoted to a single species.
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Birds of Nicaragua: A Field Guide
Artist/Author: Chavarría-Duriaux, Liliana, David C Hille, Robert Dean (Authors)$96.00 Add to cartBirders in Central America have long known that Nicaragua is one of the best birding locations in the world, and with tourism to the country on the upswing, birders from the rest of the world are now coming to the same conclusion. The largest country in Central America, Nicaragua is home to 763 resident and passage birds, by latest count. Because of its unique topography – the country is relatively flat compared to its mountainous neighbors to the north and south – it forms a geographical barrier of sorts, which means that many birds that originate in North America reach their southernmost point in Nicaragua, while many birds from South America reach their northernmost point in the country. There are few places in the world where you can find both a Roadrunner and a Scarlet Macaw.
Birds of Nicaragua features descriptions and illustrations of all 763 species currently identified in the country, along with information about 44 additional species that are likely to appear in the coming years. Range maps, based on years of field research, are color-coded. Other features include a richly illustrated anatomical features section, a checklist, a visual guide to vultures and raptors in flight, and a quick-find index.
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The Eagle Owl
Artist/Author: Penteriani, Vincenzo, María del Mar Delgado$115.00 Add to cartThe definitive work on Europe’s largest and most spectacular owl. The Eagle Owl – known rather more evocatively as the Uhu in German, in reference to its haunting, far-carrying nocturnal call – is a very large and impressive bird of prey. One of the largest owls in the world, it is a fierce hunter of large birds and mammals up to the size of foxes and small deer, and as an undisputed top predator, its ecology is fascinating. This Poyser monograph looks at distribution, foraging ecology, migration, breeding behaviour, conservation issues and population dynamics of this spectacular bird, across its vast Eurasian range. The authors, Vincenzo Penteriani and María del Mar Delgado, have undertaken many years of research on populations in and around the Coto Doñana in Spain. Other populations considered include the tiny, recently introduced one in England. This is the ultimate reference to what in many ways is Europe’s ultimate predator.
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Birding Australia’s Islands
Artist/Author: Taylor, Sue$40.00 Add to cartA thoroughly entertaining personal account of the author’s birding expeditions to some of Australia’s very special islands. She hasn’t attempted to include every one of the 8,371 islands of Australia but she has visited the country’s most extreme islands: the most southerly (Macquarie), the most northerly (Boigu, which just pips Christmas by one degree), the most westerly (Cocos) and the most easterly (Norfolk). Her aim in selecting the islands was very simple: to include those where she’s had fun birding; where she has seen lots of birds, several ‘lifers’ (her own life list of birds encountered in the wild), islands with birds never seen before in Australia or some where she had special encounters with common birds. Though Sue Taylor is herself a “twitcher”, Birding Australia’s Islands will appeal not only to intrepid birdwatchers who intend to follow in her footsteps, but also to those who are content to sit at home and read about the audacity of others who will fly across Australia’s vast continent in the hope that one individual bird will still be there waiting for them when they arrive. Illustrated with beautiful close-up photographs of species and habitats, Sue Taylor describes her adventures on 22 of Australia’s islands with humour and irrepressible enthusiasm. There are detailed and locator maps of every Island featured In the book.
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World of Birds
Artist/Author: Reed New Holland$26.00 Add to cartWorld of Birds is a photographic celebration of the diversity of the planet’s feathered inhabitants. Covering the very common to the extremely rare, from tiny hovering jewel-like hummingbirds to plunge-diving gannets, the 300 images illustrate more than 200 of the world’s 230 bird families and show the subjects hunting, feeding, displaying, fighting, flocking, roosting, rearing young and much more.
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The Australian Bird Guide (Revised Edition)
Artist/Author: Menkhorst, Peter, Danny Rogers, Rohan Clarke, Jeff Davies, Peter Marsack, Kim Franklin$50.00 Add to cartAustralia’s avifauna is large, diverse and spectacular, reflecting the continent’s impressive range of habitats and evolutionary history. With specially commissioned paintings of over 900 species, The Australian Bird Guide is the most comprehensive field guide to Australian birds ever seen.
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The Birder’s Guide to Africa
Artist/Author: Mills, Michael, (Author) Tasso Leventis (Illustrator)$84.00 Add to cartThe Birder’s Guide to Africa presents the first comprehensive and detailed summary of bird watching in the African region, covering all mainland territories and associated islands. It gives an overview of the birding in the region in the introduction, highlighting key destinations for different kinds of travellers. This is followed by country accounts for all 68 territories that comprise the region, in which details on travel and birding are provided for each territory, including a comprehensive list of important bird taxa to be targeted on a visit. In the family accounts, 142 bird families are recorded from the region, described briefly, and illustrated with spectacular photographs. Finally, the species accounts for all 2,792 bird species detail information on ease of seeing, distribution, status, habitat, subspecies, taxonomic issues and best places to see.
Any serious world lister or keen African eco-traveller will find an abundance of relevant and interesting information.
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Birds of Cambodia (Hardcover)
Artist/Author: Cambodia Bird Guide Association (CBGA) (Author)$110.00 Add to cartSandwiched principally between its better-known neighbours of Thailand, to the north and west, and Vietnam, to the east, the relatively small and comparatively low-lying country of Cambodia is dominated by the vast combined floodplains of the Tonle Sap (or Great Lake) and lower Mekong River. Unsurprisingly then, its principal attraction for birdwatchers is a suite of exceptionally scarce birds associated with wetlands and grasslands. Spearheading the list are the iconic Giant and White-shouldered Ibises, both of which are Critically Endangered, and a trio of almost equally rare vultures, including the iconic Red-headed Vulture. These rarities are the subject of an ongoing international conservation effort. The supporting cast includes Bengal Florican (also Critically Endangered), Sarus Crane (Vulnerable) and Mekong Wagtail (Near Threatened). Despite boasting just two endemic species, Cambodian Laughingthrush and the very recently described Cambodian Tailorbird, the latter’s discovery in the environs of the country’s capital Phnom Penh perhaps more than anything epitomises the potential to make cutting-edge ornithological findings in this still relatively under-explored nation. Birds of Cambodia offers the perfect introduction to the country’s varied avifauna.
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Birds of Cambodia (Flexicover)
Artist/Author: Cambodia Bird Guide Association (CBGA) (Author)$99.00 Add to cartSandwiched principally between its better-known neighbours of Thailand, to the north and west, and Vietnam, to the east, the relatively small and comparatively low-lying country of Cambodia is dominated by the vast combined floodplains of the Tonle Sap (or Great Lake) and lower Mekong River. Unsurprisingly then, its principal attraction for birdwatchers is a suite of exceptionally scarce birds associated with wetlands and grasslands. Spearheading the list are the iconic Giant and White-shouldered Ibises, both of which are Critically Endangered, and a trio of almost equally rare vultures, including the iconic Red-headed Vulture. These rarities are the subject of an ongoing international conservation effort. The supporting cast includes Bengal Florican (also Critically Endangered), Sarus Crane (Vulnerable) and Mekong Wagtail (Near Threatened). Despite boasting just two endemic species, Cambodian Laughingthrush and the very recently described Cambodian Tailorbird, the latter’s discovery in the environs of the country’s capital Phnom Penh perhaps more than anything epitomises the potential to make cutting-edge ornithological findings in this still relatively under-explored nation. Birds of Cambodia offers the perfect introduction to the country’s varied avifauna.
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Birds in Winter: Surviving the Most Challenging Season
Artist/Author: Pasquier, Roger F (Author), Margaret La Farge (Illustrator)$67.00 Add to cartBirds in Winter is the first book devoted to the ecology and behavior of birds during this most challenging season. Birds remaining in regions with cold weather must cope with much shorter days to find food and shelter even as they need to avoid predators and stay warm through the long nights, while migrants to the tropics must fit into very different ecosystems and communities of resident birds. Roger Pasquier explores how winter affects birds’ lives all through the year, starting in late summer, when some begin caching food to retrieve months later and others form social groups lasting into the next spring. During winter some birds are already pairing up for the following breeding season, when health through the winter contributes to nesting success.
Today, rapidly advancing technologies are enabling scientists to track individual birds through their daily and annual movements at home and across oceans and hemispheres, revealing new and unexpected information about their lives and interactions. But, as Birds in Winter shows, much is visible to any interested observer. Pasquier describes the season’s distinct conservation challenges for birds that winter where they have bred and for migrants to distant regions. Finally, global warming is altering the nature of winter itself. Whether birds that over millennia have evolved to survive this season can now adjust to a rapidly changing climate is a problem all people who enjoy watching them must consider.
Filled with elegant line drawings by artist and illustrator Margaret La Farge, Birds in Winter describes how winter influences the lives of birds from the poles to the equator.
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Birdstories: A History of the Birds of New Zealand
Artist/Author: Norman, Geoff$72.00 Add to cartKiwi, kākāpō, takahē, moa, tūī – these birds, and many others, are unique to Aotearoa New Zealand, and famous throughout the world. It was the 1873 publication of Walter Buller’s A History of the Birds of New Zealand that introduced overseas readers to these extraordinary creatures, and led New Zealanders as well to appreciate them in a way they had not before. Now, a century and a half later, Geoff Norman’s Birdstories builds on that legacy in a compelling, impeccably researched and beautifully presented account, which describes the origins of New Zealand’s birds, their place in both the Pākehā and Māori worlds, their survival and conservation, and the art they have inspired.
Geoff Norman writes of the birds’ unusual evolution, the disastrous impact of two waves of human migration, but too, the late nineteenth-century realisation that extinction need not be inevitable and the astonishing salvation stories of the following century.
Birdstories is a visual delight, rich in sketches and paintings by the scientists and draughtsmen who accompanied the early European explorers, and a remarkable range of works by contemporary artists. Much more than a source of fascinating information, this significant book is also a passionate call for action to save our remaining threatened species. Like the taonga it describes, Birdstories will be treasured by all who love and appreciate the unique birds of New Zealand.
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Kākāpō: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction
Artist/Author: Ballance, Alison$62.00 Add to cartKākāpō is one of New Zealand’s most charismatic yet mysterious birds. It is also one of the world’s most threatened species and a New Zealand conservation success story.
An ancient, flightless, nocturnal, herbivorous giant parrot, the kakapo was once numerous throughout the country but is now extinct in its natural range. At its low point, the population was reduced to as few as 40 known individuals, but thanks to the hard work and innovation of the Kākāpō Recovery Programme, New Zealand’s flagship threatened-species conservation programme, the Kākāpō population now exceeds 120.
Despite this exciting turnaround, there has not been a significant book on the kakapo since 1989. The story of this remarkable bird embraces science, conservation, ingenuity and personal dedication. Through an informative and entertaining mix of hard facts, history, and accounts of the daily and seasonal routines of kakapo and their minders, Alison Ballance brings together these threads to describe the natural history of the bird and tell the inspiring story of the Kākāpō Recovery Programme. Illustrated throughout and with an appendix giving details of all known Kākāpō, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the natural world of New Zealand.
