Showing 1–12 of 30 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 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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How to Know the Birds: The Art & Adventure of Birding
Artist/Author: Floyd, Ted$45.00 Add to cartHow to Know the Birds introduces a new, holistic approach to bird-watching, by noting how behaviours, settings, and seasonal cycles connect with shape, song, colour, gender, age distinctions, and other features traditionally used to identify species. Expert author Ted Floyd begins by evoking a typical bird-watching moment, his entry into a thoughtful discussion of the traditions of field guides and bird identification. Then, with short essays on 200 observable species, he guides us through a year of becoming a better birder, each species representing another useful lesson: from explaining scientific nomenclature to noting how plumage changes with age, from chronicling migration patterns to noting hatchling habits. Pen-and-ink illustrations accompany Floyd’s charming prose, making How to Know the Birds a unique blend of narrative and field guide. A pleasure for birders of all ages, this witty book promises solid lessons for the beginner and smiles of recognition for the seasoned nature lover.
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Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird (Second Edition)
Artist/Author: Kaplan, Gisela$45.00 Add to cartAn insight into the cognition, communication and social structure of this iconic Australian bird.
The Australian magpie is one of our nation’s most popular and iconic birds. It is loved for its impressive vocal abilities, propensity to play, excellent parenting and willingness to form enduring friendships with people.
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Your Backyard Birds: Understanding the Behaviours, Habits and Needs of our Brilliant Birds
Artist/Author: Cleary, Dr Gráinne$33.00 Add to cartThe remarkable relationships between our often cheeky birds and humans in Australian backyards all over the country are revealed with humour and charm. An ideal gift for any bird lover. A beautiful, inspiring and heartwarming book about our human relationships with the birds who share our backyards.
‘Do you ever wonder what birds are talking about as they fly by you? The sounds and songs of birds constantly surround us as we go about our lives. But what are they talking about? Or are they even talking or just mindlessly squawking and chirping? Why are so many urban birds so loud? Is there a message in what the birds are telling each other?’
Observing and interacting with all the different birds who visit Australian backyards leads naturally to questions about their behaviours, habits and needs. Why are they visiting? What do they want from us?For a bird, life in Australia means having mates: others who you can trust and work with to locate food and water, which can disappear as suddenly as it appears. As the humans who plant the gardens they live in and visit, what can we learn from Australia’s often-cheeky birds?
With a foreword by science journalist and broadcaster Robyn Williams AM, and chapters dedicated to discovering extraordinary information about Australia’s innovative birds, Your Backyard Birds is a delightful and compelling read. With real stories from bird-loving citizen scientists, this fascinating book features new insights about the lives of our avian friends.
Your Backyard Birds, written by a wildlife ecologist who is passionate about the vital role of citizen scientists, provides a fresh and lively perspective on human interaction with birds.
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Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs: How the Struggle for Survival Has Shaped Birds and Their Behavior
Artist/Author: Lederer, Roger$40.00 Add to cartWhen we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don’t see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment.
In Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs ornithologist Roger Lederer guides the reader through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, who manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of their plumage in winter. Or urban birds who navigate traffic through a keen understanding of posted speed limits. In engaging and accessible prose, Lederer shares how and why birds use their sensory abilities to see ultraviolet, find food without seeing it, fly thousands of miles without stopping, change their songs in noisy cities, navigate by smell, and much more.
Roger Lederer has studied bird behavior for more than thirty years. In Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs he shares this knowledge in an entertaining and eye-opening way that will be widely embraced by birders and nature lovers.
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Ornithology: Foundation, Analysis, and Application
Artist/Author: Morrison, Michael L, Amanda D Rodewald, Gary Voelker, Melanie R Colón, Jonathan F Prather (Editors)$213.00 Add to cartAves, the birds, is the wildlife group that people most frequently encounter. With over 10,000 species worldwide, these animals are part of our everyday experience. They are also the focus of intense research, and their management and conservation is a subject of considerable effort throughout the world. But what are the defining attributes that make a bird a bird?
Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, Ornithology provides a solid modern foundation for understanding the life and development of birds. Written by renowned experts from around the globe, this comprehensive textbook draws on the latest research to create an innovative learning experience. Moving beyond bones, muscle, and feathers, it provides the core information needed to “build” the bird, linking anatomy and physiology with ecology and behaviour.
As it reviews the major orders of birds, Ornithology: Foundation, Analysis, and Application highlights their wide diversity and critically evaluates ornithological concepts and theories. Incorporating brief biographies of leaders in the field, the text describes their contributions in the context of key historical events in bird science. Each chapter ends with a summary of the material covered, a discussion of potential management and conservation applications, and suggested study questions that will stimulate thought and discussion.
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Handbook of Bird Biology (Third Edition)
Artist/Author: Lovette, Irby J., Fitzpatrick, John W$190.00 Add to cartBirds thrive in all conditions, from urban neighborhoods to the remotest oceans, driest deserts, and the wettest rainforests. From the tiniest hummingbird to the largest ostrich, their varied forms fascinate us – from drab to ostentatious, silent to raucous, earthbound to global nomad.
This much-anticipated third edition of the Handbook of Bird Biology is an essential and comprehensive resource for everyone interested in learning more about birds, from casual bird watchers to formal students of ornithology. Wherever you study birds your enjoyment will be enhanced by a better understanding of the incredible diversity of avian lifestyles. Arising from the renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology and authored by a team of experts from around the world, the Handbook covers all aspects of avian diversity, behaviour, ecology, evolution, physiology, and conservation. Using examples drawn from birds found in every corner of the globe, it explores and distills the many scientific discoveries that have made birds one of our best known – and best loved – parts of the natural world.
This edition has been completely revised and is presented with more than 800 full color images. It provides readers with a tool for life-long learning about birds and is suitable for bird watchers and ornithology students, as well as for ecologists, conservationists, and resource managers who work with birds.
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Bird Migration Across the Himalayas: Wetland Functioning Amidst Mountains and Glaciers
Artist/Author: Prins, Herbert HT (Editor), Tsewang Namgail (Editor), The Dalai Lama (Foreword By)$137.00 Add to cartBirds migrating across the Himalayan region fly over the highest peaks in the world, facing immense physiological and climatic challenges. The authors show the different strategies used by birds to cope with these challenges. Many wetland avian species are seen in the high-altitude lakes of the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan Plateau, such as Bar-Headed Geese. Ringing programmes have generated information about origins and destinations, and Bird Migration Across the Himalayas is the first to present information on the bird’s exact migratory paths. Capitalising on knowledge generated through satellite telemetry, the authors describe the migratory routes of a multitude of birds flying over or skirting the Himalayas. The myriad of threats to migratory birds and the wetland system in the Central Asian Flyway are discussed, with ways to mitigate them. Bird Migration Across the Himalayas will inform and persuade policy-makers and conservation practitioners to take appropriate measures for the long-term survival of this unique migration.
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New Zealand Birds in Pictures
Artist/Author: Chen, Kimball$40.00 Add to cartFrom the barely-visible wings of the flightless kiwi to the immense wingspan of the wandering albatross, New Zealand’s fragile island ecosystem is home to a diverse array of spectacular birds.
Delve into the fascinating world of our feathered friends with author and wildlife photographer Kimball Chen. From intimate portraits of endangered creatures and their glamorous breeding plumage, to dramatic wide-angle birdscapes encompassing rugged sub-antarctic habitats, to magical fleeting encounters of birds courting and mating and hatching, Chen’s passion for nature shines with artistic and aesthetic photographs sure to pique a greater appreciation of New Zealand birds.
Accompanying this illustrated photographic book is well-researched and engaging text that enrich the images’ depicting bird behaviour and biology. Discover which native bird’s undersides have ultraviolet feathers. What underlies the musical prowess of birdsongs, and which New Zealand bird can mimic human speech? Why do adult grebes feed their babies feathers? What special physiological adaptations allow godwits to survive their monumental migration? What impact does climate change and other emerging threats have on the conservation of New Zealand’s avian wildlife?
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Avian Cognition
Artist/Author: Carel ten Cate (Editor), Susan D Healy (Editor)$137.00 Add to cartThe cognitive abilities of birds are remarkable: hummingbirds integrate spatial and temporal information about food sources, day-old chicks have a sense of numbers, parrots can make and use tools, and ravens have sophisticated insights in social relationships. This volume describes the full range of avian cognitive abilities, the mechanisms behind such abilities and how they relate to the ecology of the species. Synthesising the latest research in avian cognition, a range of experts in the field provide first-hand insights into experimental procedures, outcomes and theoretical advances, including a discussion of how the findings in birds relate to the cognitive abilities of other species, including humans. The authors cover a range of topics such as spatial cognition, social learning, tool use, perceptual categorization and concept learning, providing the broader context for students and researchers interested in the current state of avian cognition research, its key questions and appropriate experimental approaches.
- Addresses the proximate mechanisms underlying avian cognition, their ecological and evolutionary context and the approaches that have been used to study this experimentally, providing a complete overview of the field
- Fully illustrated with over one hundred figures, including detailed diagrams of experimental approaches
- Leaders in the field demonstrate how avian cognitive abilities have the potential to shed light on the origins of sophisticated traits that are common in humans
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Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence
Artist/Author: Emery, Nathan$40.00 Add to cartAn absorbing study of how birds think, revealing how science is exploding the myth of our feathered friends being ‘bird brained’, and how recent discoveries may call for us to re-evaluate how we identify and classify intelligence in other animals.
Bird Brain will start by looking at the structures and functions of the avian brain, and move on to examine different types of intelligence by profiling the extraordinary behaviours of a broad range of the species, studying the masterminds of the avian world, and examining what types of behaviour can be interpreted as ‘intelligence’ as we would recognize it. Bird Brain will not only look at the well-studied species such as New Caledonian crows and parrots, but also cast a broader eye over the behaviour of a wide range of species from around the world.Dr. Nathan Emery (Cambridge, UK), is Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Biology at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests have focused on the cognitive abilities of corvids, apes and parrots, and he is currently working with the ravens at the Tower of London. He has authored two previous books and is on the editorial boards of Animal Cognition and the Journal of Comparative Psychology. His work has been extensively reported internationally.
