Here they met and studied unique animals and were confronted with danger from drought, fire, storms, and the animals they loved. This best-selling book is for both travelers and animal lovers.

    The eminent biologist reflects on his own response to nature and the aesthetic aspects of his exploration of natural systems in an intensely personal essay that examines the essential links between mankind and the rest of the living world.

    A Simon & Schuster eBook

    It has sold over 500 000 copies. The guide contains 132 superb full-colour plates showing all Australian bird species; key points of identification using the latest classification system; distribution maps for all species; over 900 black and white line illustrations; breeding information; a vagrant bird bulletin; a core library list; and easy-to-use indexes. This eighth edition has been revised and updated, including some beautiful new plates.

    This guide includes mammals, amphibians and reptiles, with special features on studying animals, field craft and conservation.

    An identification guide with illustrations and descriptive information on over 1500 common species of wildflowers.

    An entire chapter is devoted to field sketching as a preliminary study for finished pieces of art for either artistic or scientific purposes.

    Bernd Heinrich says--because it's fun.Heinrich, author of the much acclaimed Bumblebee Economics, has been playing in the wilds of one continent or another all his life. In the process, he has become one of the world's foremost physiological ecologists. With In a Patch of Fireweed, he will undoubtedly become one of our foremost writers of popular science.Part autobiography, part case study in the ways of field biology, In a Patch of Fireweed is an endlessly fascinating account of a scientist's life and work. For the author, it is an opportunity to report not just his results but the curiosity, humor, error, passion, and competitiveness that feed into the process of discovery. For the reader, it is simply a delight, a rare chance to share the perceptions of an unusual mind fully in tune with the inner workings of nature. Before his years of research in the woodlands and deserts of North America, the New Guinea highlands, and the plains of East Africa, Heinrich had a sense of the wild that few people in this century can know. He tells the whole story, from his refugee childhood hidden in a German forest, eating mice fried in boar fat, to his ongoing research in the woods surrounding his cabin in Maine.

    

    Answers questions about the physical world, its plants and animals, and the adaptations and interactions of plants and animals in various environments such as deserts, mountains, and seashores.

    Engaging legends, medicinal uses, myths, and stories about 105 North American wildflowers along with botanical information and accurate illustrations.