seabirds

With its distinctive, comical walk, large bill and association with the conservation movement, the pelican has attained iconic status. But the pelican has a chequered history. Classed as ‘unclean’ in the King James Bible, the legend of the compassionate pelican was later appropriated by Christianity to symbolise Christ’s sacrifice. This majestic bird, gifted to British royalty in 1664, has been celebrated in art and literature, from Shakespeare’s King Lear to the writing of Edward Lear, and is the recipient of three Guinness World Records. The pelican’s anatomy has been copied for paper plane construction, aircraft design and in 3d imaging, all while it has fought back from the threat of extinction, habitat destruction and environmental disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Its resilience is as remarkable as its anatomy.

In this must-read book for all bird enthusiasts, Barbara Allen skilfully weaves together wildlife trivia, historical tales and the latest research to provide an engaging account of the cultural and natural history of this emblematic bird.

Seabirds are master navigators, thriving in the most demanding environment on earth. In this masterly book, drawing on all the most recent research, Adam Nicolson follows them to the coasts and islands of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and the Americas.    Extinction stalks the ocean and there is a danger that the grand cry of a seabird colony will this century become little but a memory.

The full story of seabirds from one the greatest nature writers. The book looks at the pattern of their lives, their habitats, the threats they face and the passions they inspire. Seabirds have always entranced the human imagination and over the last couple of decades, modern science has begun to understand them: their epic voyages, their astonishing abilities to navigate for tens of thousands of miles on a featureless sea, their ability to smell their way towards fish and home. Comprising of ten chapters, each dedicated to a different bird, and each beautifully illustrated by Kate Boxer, the reader travels the ocean paths, looking at the way their bodies work, the sense of their own individuality, the strategies and tactics needed to survive and thrive in the most demanding environment on earth. At the heart of the book are the Shiant Isles, a cluster of Hebridean islands in the Minch but Nicolson has pursued the birds much further-across the Atlantic, up the west coast of Ireland, to St Kilda, Orkney, Shetland, the Faeroes, Iceland and Norway; to the eastern seaboard of Maine and to Newfoundland, to the Falklands, South Georgia, the Canaries and the Azores-reaching out across the widths of the world ocean which is the seabirds’ home. But a global tragedy is unfolding. Even as we are coming to understand them, the number of seabirds is in freefall, dropping by nearly 70% in the last sixty years, a billion fewer now than there were in 1950. Of the ten birds in this book, seven are in decline, at least in part of their range.

Every year around August, large flocks of Eastern Curlews leave their breeding grounds in the Arctic and embark on a perilous 10,000 km journey to the coast of Australia. The birds cannot swim; if they become exhausted and fall into the ocean, they die. But it’s a journey they have taken for tens of thousands of years, tracing invisible flyways in the sky in what is one of the most spectacular mass migrations in the animal kingdom.

Following the Eastern Curlew along its migratory path, award-winning nature writer Harry Saddler explores how these incredible birds have impressed themselves on the cultures of the countries they fly through, the threat to their survival posed by development, and the remarkable ways these birds and humankind may be entwined. The Eastern Curlew: The Extraordinary Life of a Migratory Bird is a delightful and vivid portrait of a fascinating natural phenomenon.

Seabirds are master navigators, thriving in the most demanding environment on earth. In this masterly book, drawing on all the most recent research, Adam Nicolson follows them to the coasts and islands of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and the Americas.    Extinction stalks the ocean and there is a danger that the grand cry of a seabird colony will this century become little but a memory.

The full story of seabirds from one the greatest nature writers. The book looks at the pattern of their lives, their habitats, the threats they face and the passions they inspire. Seabirds have always entranced the human imagination and over the last couple of decades, modern science has begun to understand them: their epic voyages, their astonishing abilities to navigate for tens of thousands of miles on a featureless sea, their ability to smell their way towards fish and home. Comprising of ten chapters, each dedicated to a different bird, and each beautifully illustrated by Kate Boxer, the reader travels the ocean paths, looking at the way their bodies work, the sense of their own individuality, the strategies and tactics needed to survive and thrive in the most demanding environment on earth. At the heart of the book are the Shiant Isles, a cluster of Hebridean islands in the Minch but Nicolson has pursued the birds much further-across the Atlantic, up the west coast of Ireland, to St Kilda, Orkney, Shetland, the Faeroes, Iceland and Norway; to the eastern seaboard of Maine and to Newfoundland, to the Falklands, South Georgia, the Canaries and the Azores-reaching out across the widths of the world ocean which is the seabirds’ home. But a global tragedy is unfolding. Even as we are coming to understand them, the number of seabirds is in freefall, dropping by nearly 70% in the last sixty years, a billion fewer now than there were in 1950. Of the ten birds in this book, seven are in decline, at least in part of their range.