Showing 1–12 of 27 results
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Raptors: The Curious Nature of Diurnal Birds of Prey
Artist/Author: Bildstein, Keith L.$75.00 Add to cartRaptors are formally classified into five families and include birds – such as eagles, ospreys, kites, true hawks, buzzards, harriers, vultures, and falcons – that are familiar and recognized by many observers. These diurnal birds of prey are found on every continent except Antarctica and can thrive in seemingly inhospitable spots such as deserts and the tundra. They have powerful talons and hooked beaks for cutting and tearing meat, and keen binocular vision to aid in their hunting prowess. Because of their large size, distinctive feeding habits, and long-distance flight patterns, raptors intrigue humans and have been the subject of much general interest as well as extensive scientific research.
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Australasian Eagles and Eagle-like Birds
Artist/Author: Debus, Stephen.$50.00 Add to cartEagles are awe-inspiring birds that have influenced much human endeavour. Australia is home to three eagle species, and in Melanesia there are four additional endemic species. A further three large Australian hawks are eagle-like. Eagles, being at the top of the food chain, are sensitive ecological barometers of human impact on the Earth’s ecosystem services, and all of the six Australian species covered in this book are threatened in at least some states (one also nationally). Three of the four Melanesian tropical forest endemics are threatened or near-threatened. In Australasian Eagles and Eagle-like Birds, Dr Stephen Debus provides a 25-year update of knowledge on these 10 species as a supplement to the Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (‘HANZAB’) and recent global treatises, based partly on his own field studies. Included are the first nest or prey records for some Melanesian species. This book places the Australasian species in their regional and global context, reviews their population status and threats, provides new information on their ecology, and suggests what needs to be done in order to ensure the future of these magnificent birds.
Australasian Eagles and Eagle-like Birds is an invaluable resource for raptor biologists, birdwatchers, wildlife rescuers and carers, raptor rehabilitators and zookeepers. -
Peregrine Falcons of the World
Artist/Author: White, Clayton M., Tom J. Cade, James H.$50.00 Add to cartPerhaps beginning near the end of the Pleistocene, Peregrines began to acquire a vast cosmopolitan distribution, and set the stage for fascinating structural, behavioral, and population distinctions related to where they lived. Those divergences were driven by the various demands of landscapes as different as one can find on earth, including Greenland tundra, South Pacific islands, Utah arid scrublands, the cold wind-swept Aleutians, and warm, moist Indonesian forests. Modern Peregrines reveal that geographic isolation may befall even a creature renowned for great speed and mobility. Peregrine Falcons of the World brings together the lifetime experiences of the authors with this splendid falcon in the field and in museums, hundreds of personal accounts by Peregrine observers worldwide, a vast literature on this falcon which is surely among the best-studied birds, scores of superb photographic images so generously supplied, and the matchless art of Andrew Ellis. The goal is to provide a feel for how Peregrines have responded to their varied world, and to earmark the many gaps in what we know. Oddly, Peregrines have not colonized many places, where by any reckoning, they should be.In recent times, roughly twenty subspecies of Peregrines were described. The historical reasons for these designations, and our current analyses are provided here. Some populations are very distinct in form and color, but sometimes they geographically overlap and intergrades appear. Each subspecies account also describes distribution, hunting and nesting habitats, migration and wintering ranges, estimated population sizes, and conservation aspects. In the end, present day Peregrines appear in at least a score of populations experiencing different degrees of isolation and enjoying different rates of divergence. The challenge of understanding their relationships is sometimes made greater by almost complete lack of information or specimens from vast regions where neighbouring subspecies apparently come together because no obvious barrier exists. But the Peregrine Falcon will never lack for serious aficionados. Field people around the world add to the growing literature almost weekly so that someday a more complete appreciation is inevitable.
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Australian predators of the sky.
Artist/Author: Olsen, Penny. Foreword by Sean Dooley.$40.00 Add to cartOur relationship with the birds of prey has always been conflicted. Raptors are admired for their strength and independence, but despised for their depredations on livestock and favourite garden birds, while the owls are at once respected for their wisdom and watchfulness and feared for their mournful cries and association with darkness and ill-omen. Australian Predators of the Sky comprises over 200 striking paintings, lithographs and engravings of all 34 Australian species – 25 diurnal birds of prey and nine owls. From odd-looking first depictions to stunning, detailed portrayals of the species, the illustrations cover more than two centuries of bird art, selected from the National Library of Australia’s collection. The artists include George Raper and John Hunter (First Fleet naval officers), Sarah Stone, John and Elizabeth Gould, Ellis Rowan, Neville Henry Cayley, Lilian Medland, Ebenezer Edward Gostelow, and, more recently, Betty Temple Watts, Frank Knight and Jeff Davies.
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H is for hawk.
Artist/Author: Macdonald, Helen.$23.00 Add to cartWinner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. In her youth, Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer, learning the arcane terminology and reading all the classic books. Years later, when her father died and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She bought Mabel for 800 pounds on a Scottish quayside and took her home to Cambridge, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals. An unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald’s struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk’s taming and her own untaming. This is a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love. Also available in hardcover [stock id 38095].
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‘Io Lani: the Hawaiian hawk.
Artist/Author: Culliney, John L., Nathan Napoka and William S. Chillingworth.$40.00 Add to cartWritten by biologist John L. Culliney and native Hawaiian historian, Nathan Nopaka, accompanied with stunningly vivid photographs by William S. Chillingworth, this book tells the story of the Hawaiian hawk Buteo solitaries, once the symbol of Hawaiian royalty, now a threatened species, its population estimated to be less than three thousand birds found only on the Island of Hawai’i.
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Australian High Country Raptors
Artist/Author: Olsen, Jerry.$70.00 Add to cartA detailed guide to all the raptor species that regularly breed in the high country above 600 metres, from Goulburn in New South Wales down to the hills outside Melbourne, Victoria. Author Jerry Olsen explores the nature of these striking animals that are classified as Accipitriformes and Falconiformes and Strigiformes. Contains sections on finding and watching raptors, identification, feeding, breeding and behaviour and conservation. Compares high country raptors and lower-elevation breeders and also makes comparisons with raptors found overseas, especially from North America and Europe. Describes the different habitats and vegetations types found in the high country and details which raptors are found in each.
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The Crossley ID guide: raptors.
Artist/Author: Crossley, Richard et al.$48.00 Add to cartPart of the revolutionary Crossley ID guide series covering North American birds, this is the first raptor guide with lifelike scenes composed from multiple photographs–scenes that allow you to identify raptors just as the experts do. Experienced birders use the most easily observed and consistent characteristics–size, shape, behaviour, probability, and general colour patterns. The book’s 101 scenes, including thirty-five double-page layouts, provide a complete picture of how these features are all related. Even the effects of lighting and other real-world conditions are illustrated and explained. Detailed and succinct accounts from two of North America’s foremost raptor experts, Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan, stress the key identification features. This complete picture allows everyone from beginner to expert to understand and enjoy what he or she sees in the field. The mystique of bird identification is eliminated, allowing even novice birders to identify raptors quickly and simply. Comprehensive and authoritative, the book covers all thirty-four of North America’s diurnal raptor species (all species except owls). Each species is featured in stunning colour plates that show males and females, in a full spectrum of ages and colour variants, depicted near and far, in flight and at rest, and from multiple angles, all caught in their typical habitats. There are also comparative, multispecies scenes and mystery photographs that allow readers to test their identification skills, along with answers and full explanations in the back of the book. In addition, the book features an introduction, and thirty-four colour maps accompany the plates.
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An eternity of eagles: the human history of the most fascinating bird in the world.
Artist/Author: Bodio, Stephen J.$40.00 Add to cartA compulsively readable natural and social history, this book is a profusely illustrated celebration of all things eagle, by a naturalist who has kept eagles himself and ridden with the eagle tribes of Central Asia.
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Raptors of Southern Queensland.
Artist/Author: Czechura, Greg and Chris Field.$12.00 Add to cartThis title is currently out of stock. REPRINT UNDER CONSIDERATION, NO DUE DATE. Raptor watching is a challenging and exciting pursuit. Field guides for raptors usually focus on plumage and colour, but this innovative booklet also emphasises the shape and form of the birds while perched, or in flight. The text describes all 24 species of raptors endemic to Australia and is enhanced by more than 100 beautiful images.
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Birds of Prey of Australia: A Field Guide
Artist/Author: Debus, Stephen.$40.00 Add to cartThis Second Edition illustrated field guide to diurnal raptors, a bird group that many people find among the most difficult birds to identify. Iconic and popular birds, raptors are important ecologically as well as in legislation, with some species listed as threatened. An aid to identification, this book also provides a brief overview of the biology of raptors and an indication of the current state of knowledge on them. The book has been completely revised and updated, with 15 years of new data, a section on difficult species-pairs (split-images providing direct contrast), and rearranged in modern field-guide format, making it easy to use and enabling rapid identification of ‘difficult’ raptors. Illustrated with 26 plates from the Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic birds, along with other illustrations depicting flight, soaring, display, feeding, hunting, and courtship. In this new edition, the split images are from the HANZAB plates but haven’t been published in that format before. There is also one new plate, the Oriental honey-buzzard, and the photographs are all new.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Stephen Debus has undertaken research on and written about raptors for 30 years. He completed a PhD and postdoctoral research in Zoology, on declining woodland birds. He now works as an ecological consultant, and is an honorary research associate at UNE, doing projects on various raptors. He co-edits the BOCA journal Australian Field Ornithology, edits the Australasian Raptor Association (ARA) journal Boobook, and serves on the Australian Bird Study Association committee. Stephen has authored field guides on raptors and owls and participated in several Red Goshawk projects. -
The Kittiwake.
Artist/Author: Coulson, John C.$110.00 Add to cartPoyser monograph. Returning to its breeding sites in the spring after a winter spent far out at sea, the Kittiwake is a familiar sight around the coasts of Britain and Europe. A pale, medium-sized gull with a ‘gentle’ expression and bright yellow bill, the Kittiwake has been the subject of behavioural research since the late 1950s – one of the longest running studies in the world. In this Poyser Monograph, John Coulson summarises these decades of research, revealing amazing insights into the life of these gulls, with wider implications for the behavioural ecology of all colonial birds. There are sections on life at sea, nest-site selection, breeding biology, feeding ecology, colony dynamics, moult, survivorship and conservation. This book is essential for academics working on colonial species, and is also of great interest to birders who want to learn more about these elegant cliff-dwelling birds.
