Earthbound, we can only look and listen, enjoying their lightness, freedom and richness of plumage and song.David Attenborough has been watching and learning all his life. His new book, with its accompanying series of films for BBC TV, is a brilliant introduction to bird behaviours around the world: what they do and why they do it. He looks at each step in birds' lives and the problems they have to solve: learning to fly; finding food; communicating; mating and caring for nests, eggs and young; migrating; facing dangers and surviving harsh conditions.Sir David has no equal in helping others to learn and making it exciting. His curiosity and enjoyment are infectious. He shows the lifelong pleasure that birds around us offer, and how much we miss if unaware of them.

    Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world's changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.

    There's no need to look through dozens of photos of birds that don't live in Minnesota. This book features 111 species of Minnesota birds, organized by color for ease of use. Do you see a yellow bird and don't know what it is? Go to the yellow section to find out. Fact-filled information, a compare feature, range maps and detailed photographs help to ensure that you positively identify the birds that you see.

    This trove of previously uncollected writings is a priceless addition to our knowledge of Rachel Carson, her affinity with the natural world, and her life.

    The most comprehensive field guide available to the flora and fauna of California--a portable, essential companion for visitors and residents alike--from the go-to reference source for over 18 million nature lovers.This compact volume contains:An easy-to-use field guide for identifying 1,000 of the state's wildflowers, trees, mushrooms, mosses, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, butterflies, mammals, and much more;A complete overview of California's natural history, covering geology, wildlife habitats, ecology, fossils, rocks and minerals, clouds and weather patterns and night sky;An extensive sampling of the area's best parks, preserves, beaches, forests, islands, and wildlife sanctuaries, with detailed descriptions and visitor information for 50 sites and notes on dozens of others.The guide is packed with visual information -- the 1,500 full-color images include more than 1,300 photographs, 14 maps, and 16 night-sky charts, as well as 150 drawings explaining everything from geological processes to the basic features of different plants and animals.

    This compact volume contains:An easy-to-use field guide for identifying 1,000 of the region's wildflowers, trees, mushrooms, mosses, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, butterflies, mammals, and much more; A complete overview of New England's natural history, covering geology, wildlife habitats, ecology, fossils, rocks and minerals, clouds and weather patterns and night sky;An extensive sampling of the area's best parks, preserves, beaches, forests, islands, and wildlife sanctuaries, with detailed descriptions and visitor information for 50 sites and notes on dozens of others.The guide is packed with visual information -- the 1,500 full-color images include more than 1,300 photographs, 14 maps, and 16 night-sky charts, as well as 150 drawings explaining everything from geological processes to the basic features of different plants and animals. For everyone who lives or spends time in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or Vermont, there can be no finer guide to the area's natural surroundings than the National Audubon Society Field Guide to New England.

    This book presents the choicest of these findings, with a remarkable wealth of insights into the myriad strategies that animals have developed to perpetuate their kind. In an irresistible style, Raghavendra Gadagkar explores the strategies of cooperation and conflict adopted by animals--from the lordly lion to the primitive wasp worker--as they choose mates, raise their young, communicate with others, and establish the division of labor necessary to feed and protect the group and safeguard their territory.Whether focusing on the birds or the bees, this book offers both superb descriptions and lucid explanations of many different behaviors encountered in the animal world: why a ground squirrel will sound an alarm--even risk its own safety--to warn fellow squirrels of impending danger; why weaver ant larvae donate silk for nest building; why house mice raise their offspring in a communal nursery; and how animals can recognize the relatives they want to favor--or avoid.Illustrated with both photographs and explanatory diagrams, this expert and inviting tour of the social world of animals will inform and charm anyone curious about the motivations behind the amazing range of activity in the animal kingdom.

    Simpson is a true Alaskan who lives all of the adventures and traverses the wild places of her essays. Her subjects range from a sobering introduction to the ways of trapping in "Killing Wolves" to a meditation on the terror of disappearing into the Alaskan outback in "The Book of Being Lost". With a clear-eyed, unsentimental appreciation of the great northern place, this writer expresses a commanding view of Alaska.

    Wells captures with exquisite detail how limpets, like bees, navigate by the stars; how the brainless sea urchin makes a myriad of critical survival decisions every day; how “deserted islands” teem with an incredible abundance of animal life; and why deep-diving whales never get the bends. Elegant and finely crafted, Civilization and the Limpet will enlighten, amuse, and awe anyone interested in the natural world.

    Seminal works like The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game, Thinking Animals, and Nature and Madness introduced readers to new and provocative ideas about humanity and its relationship to the natural world. Throughout his long and distinguished career, Paul Shepard returned repeatedly to his guiding theme, the central tenet of his thought: that our essential human nature is a product of our genetic heritage, formed through thousands of years of evolution during the Pleistocene epoch, and that the current subversion of that Pleistocene heritage lies at the heart of today's ecological and social ills.Coming Home to the Pleistocene provides the fullest explanation of that theme. Completed just before his death in the summer of 1996, it represents the culmination of Paul Shepard's life work and constitutes the clearest, most accessible expression of his ideas. Coming Home to the Pleistocene pulls together the threads of his vision, considers new research and thinking that expands his own ideas, and integrates material within a new matrix of scientific thought that both enriches his original insights and allows them to be considered in a broader context of current intellectual controversies. In addition, the book explicitly addresses the fundamental question raised by Paul Shepard's work: What can we do to recreate a life more in tune with our genetic roots? In this book, Paul Shepard presents concrete suggestions for fostering the kinds of ecological settings and cultural practices that are optimal for human health and well-being.Coming Home to the Pleistocene is a valuable book for those familiar with the life and work of Paul Shepard, as well as for new readers seeking an accessible introduction to and overview of his thought.

    Now she applies her loving watercolor brush and witty pen to the botanical world. 100 illustrations.

    Born in Dunbar in 1838, Muir is famed as the father of American conservation. This collection, including the rarely-seen Stickeen, presents the finest of Muir's writings, and imparts a rounded portrait of a man whose generosity, passion, discipline, and vision are an inspiration to this day. Combining acute observation with a sense of inner discovery, Muir's writings of his travels though some of the greatest landscapes on Earth, including the Carolinas, Florida, Alaska, and those lands which were to become the great National Parks of Yosemite and the Sierra Valley, raise an awareness of nature to a spiritual dimension. These journals provide a unique marriage of natural history with lyrical prose and often amusing anecdotes, retaining a freshness, intensity, and brutal honesty which will amaze the modern reader. Introduced by Graham White.

    In text and in more than 250 images-many of them published here for the first time-Nolan recreates the life Billy lived and the places and people he knew. This unique assemblage is complemented by maps and a full biography that incorporates Nolan’s original research, adding fresh depth and detail to the Kid’s story and to the lives and backgrounds of those who witnessed the events of his life and death.Here are the faces of Billy’s family, friends, and enemies: John Tunstall and John Chisum, Sheriff Pat Garrett and Governor Lew Wallace, Jimmy Dolan and Bob Olinger, Alexander McSween and Paulita Maxwell, and many others. Here are Santa Fe and Silver City as Billy the Kid saw them, Lincoln, Las Vegas, and Tascosa. Recent photographs show the Kid’s haunts as they appear today.

    In fact, you don't even have to like to fish to enjoy and appreciate the latest book from respected psychologist, fisherman, and essayist Paul Quinnett.Fishing Lessons is a rich mix of anecdotes, observations, essays, short stories, one-liners, and personal revelations from Quinnett's rich life and fishing journals. In his honest, straightforward style, the renowned psychologist/fisherman rounds out the trilogy that began with Pavlov's Trout and Darwin's Bass, the first books ever written on the psychology of fishing. This time he tackles the philosophy of fishing -- a philosophy of enjoying life. Over the course of its 240 pages. Fishing Lessons provides satisfying essays that won't so much teach you about fishing as they will teach you about yourself.

    Written as a field guide to the physical and biological processes that generate patterns on Western Atlantic shorelines, it is intended for a wide audience ranging from undergraduate students and amateur naturalists to professionals in other disciplines.

    

    He finds many -- from a community of giant cave bats that were supposedly extinct to the elusive black-and-white tree-kangaroo -- and along the way has a wealth of unforgettable adventures. Flannery scales cliffs, descends into caverns, and cheats death, both from disease and at the hands of the local cannibals, who wish to take revenge on his "clan" of wildlife scientists. He eventually befriends the tribespeople, who become companions in his quest and whose contributions to his research prove invaluable. In New Guinea pidgin, throwim way leg means to take the first step of a long journey. The journey in this book is a wild ride full of natural wonders and Flannery's trademark wit, a tour de force of travelogue, anthropology, and natural history.

    In this brilliant book, Paul Shepard offers a provocative alternative to an "us or them" mentality, proposing that other species are integral to humanity's evolution and exist at the core of our imagination. This trait, he argues, compels us to think of animals in order to be human. Without other living species by which to measure ourselves, Shepard warns, we would be less mature, care less for and be more careless of all life, including our own kind.

    It is probably in our nature. Itis also, apparently, in our nature to destroy that which we hold inawe. --from The Enchanted BraidOf the myriad ecosystems populating the underwater world, coralreefs are by far the most complex. While their stunning beauty hasbeen extolled for centuries, the intricate workings of reefenvironments remained largely hidden from view. In fact, until theadvent of scuba diving just fifty years ago, corals have been amongthe last natural histories to be extensively explored. The highpassion with which scientists have greeted this particularinvestigation --beginning with the foundational theories of CharlesDarwin in 1842--is perhaps unprecedented, but hardly difficult tounderstand. A phenomenon of both awesome beauty and vitalimportance, the coral reef is home to the most diverse range ofspecies of any environment on the planet, including fish, shrimps, worms, snails, crabs, sea cucumbers, sea stars, urchins, anemones, and sea squirts.The crux of reef life, scientists have discovered, lies in nature'smost intimate example of symbiosis: the mutually beneficialrelationship between the coral polyp and its tenant, thezooxanthellate algae. Davidson's history begins with thisdeceptively diminutive hybrid, the engine behind the constructionof the limestone-based coral structure. Together, the threeelements comprise a unique zoophytalite (animal-plant-mineral)form, or an enchanted braid.Aided by an eight-page, full-color photographic insertdemonstrating the incredible intricacies of the reef and its uniqueinhabitants, The Enchanted Braid identifies the approximately240,000 square miles of coral reef on the planet today asindispensable not only to the livelihood of the oceans but also tohumans. The reef is, after all, the soul of the sea, the spawningground for tens of thousands of marine species. As sources of food(many islands rely on reefs for all their protein), medicine(corals are used in bone grafts and to fight cancer and leukemia), and detailed insight into the history of climatic conditions, coralreefs are critically important to human life on Earth. However, ina world of oil tanker disasters, global warming, and dwindlingnatural resources, they are also in grave danger ofextinction.Osha Gray Davidson's urgent clarion call to halt today's man-madedegradation of coral reefs is both alarming and persuasive, effectively underscored by the rich historical context of passagesfrom Darwin's captivating diary of his seminal work on reefs 150years ago. Like the coral reef, The Enchanted Braid is itself arare hybrid, a graceful combination of aesthetic appreciation, scientific inquiry, and environmental manifesto.

    Explaining the functions of anatomical characteristics such as heat-sensitive facial pits, Manny Rubio also describes rattlesnakes' diverse habitats, feeding strategies, reproductive cycles, and seasonal hibernation patterns. Drawing on recent research and replete with never-before-published photographs, Rattlesnake is landmark guide for both professional and amateur herpetologists, as well as a fascinating introduction to the most maligned reptile of the Americas.

    The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.

    An instant hit when it was published in France in 1879, Souvenirs Entomologiques has endured as a testament to our universal fascination with the smallest of creatures. McLoughlin's exquisite original paintings were created especially to illuminate this collection of clever, amusing, and provocative writings. Whether depicting the intricate texture of a butterfly's wings or the pale delicacy of a hummingbird's egg, Jean Henri Fabre and Marlene McLoughlin create a vivid world of discovery.

    Vulnerable to storms that arise in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, Florida has been hit by far more hurricanes than any other state. In many ways, hurricanes have helped shape Florida's history. Early efforts by the French, Spanish, and English to claim the territory as their own were often thwarted by hurricanes. More recently, storms have affected such massive projects as Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad and efforts to manage water in South Florida. In this book, Jay Barnes offers a fascinating and informative look at Florida's hurricane history. Drawing on meteorological research, news reports, first-person accounts, maps, and historical photographs, he traces all of the notable hurricanes that have affected the state over the last four-and-a-half centuries, from the great storms of the early colonial period to the devastating hurricanes of 2004 and 2005--Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Katrina, and Wilma. In addition to providing a comprehensive chronology of more than one hundred individual storms, Florida's Hurricane History includes information on the basics of hurricane dynamics, formation, naming, and forecasting. It explores the origins of the U.S. Weather Bureau and government efforts to study and track hurricanes in Florida, home of the National Hurricane Center. But the book does more than examine how hurricanes have shaped Florida's past; it also looks toward the future, discussing the serious threat that hurricanes continue to pose to both lives and property in the state. Filled with more than 200 photographs and maps, the book also features a foreword by Steve Lyons, tropical weather expert for the Weather Channel. It will serve as both an essential reference on hurricanes in Florida and a remarkable source of the stories--of tragedy and destruction, rescue and survival--that foster our fascination with these powerful storms.Vulnerable to storms that arise in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, Florida has been hit by far more hurricanes than any other state. In this updated edition of Florida's Hurricane History, Jay Barnes draws on meteorological research, news reports, first-person accounts, maps, and historical photographs to trace all of the notable hurricanes that have affected the state over the last four-and-a-half centuries, from the early colonial period to the devastating hurricanes of 2004 and 2005--Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Katrina, and Wilma. Illustrated with more than 200 photographs and maps, the book is filled with fascinating stories of tragedy and survival.

    Everest. This wondrous large-format book, full of dramatic full-color spreads and in-depth text, takes armchair adventurers as well as experienced climbers to their heavens--the peaks of the 50 most awe-inspiring mountains in the world. Moving stories of staggering altitudes, the sheer will to survive and the quest for the summits inspire readers with the adventurer's spirit that has put mountain climbing at the height of its popularity. Organized geographically by continent, each chapter covers a different mountain: its history, physical characteristics, route descriptions and famous ascents. Excerpts from detailed accounts of legendary expeditions will thrill and shock readers including Jon Krakauer on the tragic 1996 season on Everest. Includes biographies of Sir Edmund Hillary, Stacy Allison, Chris Bonington and other noted climbers. From Mt. Everest and K2 in the Himalayas to Denali in Alaska, Mt. Rainier in Washington and Mt. Eiger in the Alps, mountains all over the world are captured in vivid color photos from expeditions new and old.

    Indispensable volume of royalty-free graphics for immediate use by commercial and graphic artists.

    Includes an A-to-Z guide to herbs and instructions for growing them. 300+ color photos & illustrations. 8 color garden plans.

    A building cleared of every living thing by a band of tiny spiders. An infant insect eating its living prey from within, saving the vital organs for last. These are among the deadly feats of natural engineering you'll witness in The Red Hourglass, prize-winning author Gordon Grice's masterful, poetic, often dryly funny exploration of predators he has encountered around his rural Oklahoma home. Grice is a witty and intrepid guide through a world where mating ends in cannibalism, where killers possess toxins so lethal as to defy our ideas of a benevolent God, where spider remains, scattered like "the cast-off coats of untidy children," tell a quiet story of violent self-extermination. It's a world you'll recognize despite its exotic strangeness--the world in which we live. Unabashedly stepping into the mix, Grice abandons his role as objective observer with beguiling dark humor--collecting spiders and other vermin, decorating a tarantula's terrarium with dollhouse furniture, or forcing a battle between captive insects because he deems one "too stupid to live."Kill. Eat. Mate. Die. Charting the simple brutality of the lives of these predators, Grice's starkly graceful essays guide us toward startling truths about our own predatory nature. The Red Hourglass brings us face to fanged face with the inadequacy of our distinctions between normal and abnormal, dead and alive, innocent and evil.From the Hardcover edition.

    Iwago is one of the world's preeminent wildlife photographers, his images repeatedly lauded as superbly composed, dramatic, intelligent, and beautiful. His first book, Serengeti, was called one of the finest wildlife books ever published and has sold over 80,000 copies. Wildlife boasts the same riveting perspective, but takes us a good deal further, presenting wildlife of all kinds on every continent. Organized by region, from the Galapagos Islands to the plains of Africa, from the forests of India to the ice floes of Alaska, Wildlife is the rare nature book that is international in scope. Turn these pages and the panoply of creation dazzles the mind and the eye. Asian elephants, African lions, Antarctic penguins, North American otters-the world's myriad creatures show themselves in this brilliantly colorful tour. Here is an absolutely essential volume for all who love animals.

    In 175 of his signature photographs, Wolfe focuses on his home region with masterful portraits of the mountains, forests, rivers, sea, islands, and desert of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Each chapter opens with an evocative essay by celebrated nature writer Brenda Peterson, making Pacific Northwest is the perfect keepsake for residents, visitors, and nature lovers everywhere.

    Armies of ants. Squawking parrots. Strangling figs. From the ground up to the tree tops, the tropical rainforest teems with life. Stunning drawings, step-by-step experiments, fun-to-do activities, and fascinating facts abound in this magical exploration of an essential ecosystem, in danger of disappearing forever. Tropical Rain Forest is a new edition to the One Samll Square Series not previously published in hardcover.

    Suitable for stargazing anywhereNeven the cityNThe Night Sky will add to kids' wonder as it teaches them about the marvels of the heavens through superb illustrations and a proven approach that entices their interest and involvement.

    This climate of mild, rainy winters and dry, warm summers is found in California, Central Chile, the Cape Region of South Africa, the southwestern part of Australia and the Mediterranean Basin. The regions are widely separated and the flora of each is distinctive, having for the most part developed independently. Nevertheless, the plants share remarkably similar characteristics which allow them to thrive in these unusual conditions.Peter Dallman's non-technical prose is complemented by numerous maps, tables, and figures, and the book is richly illustrated with photographs of landscapes, plants, and flowers. With its detailed information on some of the world's most resilient plant life, this book will serve as an excellent reference for everyone interested in growing drought-resistant plants and as a naturalist's guide to these beautiful and unusual bioregions.For the growing number of travelers whose vacations focus on learning about and appreciating natural history, Dallman also includes a chapter on planning trips to the five Mediterranean regions.

    It is also the first of the final three such collections, since Dr. Gould has announced that the series will end with the turn of the millennium. In this collection, Gould consciously and unconventionally formulates a humanistic natural history, a consideration of how humans have learned to study and understand nature, rather than a history of nature itself. With his customary brilliance, Gould examines the puzzles and paradoxes great and small that build nature's and humanity's diversity and order. In affecting short biographies, he depicts how scholars grapple with problems of science and philosophy as he illuminates the interaction of the outer world with the unique human ability to struggle to understand the whys and wherefores of existence. "From the Hardcover edition."

    This fully revised fourth edition includes a complete update of the sections on evolution and the fossil record, and the evolution of the early metazoans. New work on the classification of the major phyla (in particular brachiopods and molluscs) has been incorporated. The section on trace fossils is extensively rewritten. The author has taken care to involve specialists in the major groups, to ensure the taxonomy is as up-to-date and accurate as possible.