When one of his release sites was raided by a golden eagle, he managed to save a peregrine chick, and decided to make an improbable two-thousand-mile trip with the surviving young falcon, Dolly. From the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, following the autumnal migration of waterfowl, O'Brien taught her to hunt as a wild falcon would, in the hopes of releasing her into the natural world. The Rites of Autumn is the riveting account of their incredible journey. (51/2 X 81/4, 208 pages, map)

    Have you ever seen a yellow elephant, glowing in the jungle sun?Have you seen a green frog--splash!--turn blue?Or a red donkey throw a red-hot tantrum?In this bright bestiary, poet Julie Larios and painter Julie Paschkis cast a menagerie of animals in brilliantly unexpected hues--encouraging us to see the familiar in surprising new ways.

    Featuring 50 common North American birds, such as the White-Breasted Butt Nugget and the Goddamned Canada Goose (or White-Breasted Nuthatch and Canada Goose for the layperson), Matt Kracht identifies all the idiots in your backyard and details exactly why they suck with ink drawings. Each entry is accompanied by facts about a bird's (annoying) call, its (dumb) migratory pattern, its (downright tacky) markings, and more.The essential guide to all things wings with migratory maps, tips for birding, musings on the avian population, and the ethics of birdwatching.

    Dan's Moonlight Chronicles zines have long been a cult favorite of art, travel writing, and outdoor enthusiasts. This full-color book version picks up where the zines left off, following Dan as he ambles through the cafes, alleyways, and skyscrapers of New York City; hits the trail for a five-day hike in Hell's Canyon; and wanders through the Sierras, in the footsteps of kindred soul John Muir. Dan's spirited language and charming pictures remind you of the small joys of life and the fact that happiness abounds, just waiting to be discovered along the highways and byways of America. From the Trade Paperback edition.

    And although we want it to last forever, we know that nothing ever does. In the early 1990's David Hartwig, a Texas cowboy with dreams of rodeo stardom, struggled to support his family and, in doing so, discovered a dog with talents he himself could never realize.Together with David, Skidboot shot to international fame, despite tumultuous events that nearly sent this rural family to the brink. Skidboot is a true story of loyalty, sacrifice, discipline, love, and companionship. Skidboot--there will never be another.

    In this astounding guide, renowned animal communicator Carol Gurney draws upon fifteen years of successful communication with animals to offer animal lovers what they’ve always longed for: a simple, effective method for “listening to” and communicating with their animals. Based on her successful 7-step HeartTalk ProgramSM, which has already helped thousands of people understand their basic telepathic connection with animals, Gurney outlines the principles of “heart-to-heart” communication, showing you how to open your heart to a more meaningful connection with the animals you love. Learn how to:* Understand your animal’s needs, feelings, and innermost thoughts so you can discover who he or she really is* Develop long-distance communication skills to locate lost or stolen animals* Understand animals’ physical feelings so you can help comfort them when they are sick or injured* Emotionally prepare yourself for the death of your beloved animal* Discover how animals can be your best teachers in helping you to love yourself* Actually communicate telepathically with the loving beings that share your world!Animals are not only our loyal companions; they are our guides, our healers, our link to the simple wisdom of the natural world. Filled with amazing real-life stories of human/animal communication, The Language of Animals is a must for every animal enthusiast–and a loving gift to the engaging, expressive animals who have so much to share.

    He never left. With an assortment of birds, dogs, snakes, and books, he took up residence in a ramshackle two-story house along US 60 and set out to live in the way of country people. "Querencia"--the Zen-like Spanish term means something like the tiny pocket of one's inner life where one is truly at home--details a decade of life there. Throughout the early pages of his memoir, Stephen finds himself tested by the locals for his knowledge of raptor birds, of snakes, of dogs. When he begins to pass the tests, his transformation is complete, earning him a home, a place in the heart. Querencia offers a fine brief on rural living, alternately reveling in country matters and acknowledging the difficulties involved in such exercises as luring cows home from the mountain wilderness into which they've strayed while steering clear of venomous reptiles and combative bull elk. It's a treasure. --Greg McNamee

    In a society obsessed with natural history and the discovery of new species, the birdman’s wife was at its glittering epicentre. Her artistry breathed life into hundreds of exotic finds, from her husband’s celebrated collections to Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches.Fired by Darwin’s discoveries, in 1838 Elizabeth defied convention by joining John on a trailblazing expedition to the untamed wilderness of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.From a naïve and uncertain young girl to a bold adventurer determined to find her own voice and place in the world, The Birdman’s Wife paints an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman overlooked by history, until now.

    The most user-friendly butterfly guide ever published, still handy and compact, now updated with the very latest information- Follows the latest classification, recognizing more than forty additional species- Includes four new color plates of Mexican-border rarities- More than 2,300 images of butterflies in natural poses- Pictorial table of contents- Convenient one-page index- Range maps on text pages

    This informative narrative is full of fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the U.S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet; a portrait of a bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall; a formal meeting with Chinese writers; a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel lobby; an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their house; a scene in the Beijing foreigners' compound with an excited European journalist; and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing Library. In the U.S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist; there is the lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to a variety of actions; and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox, and with fresh insight into the human drama.

    It is a personal, private place where you have unlimited freedom to express yourself, experiment, discover, dream and document your world. The possibilities are endless.In How to Keep a Sketchbook Journal, Claudia Nice shows you samples from her own journals and provides you with advice and encouragement for keeping your own. She reviews types of journals, from theme and garden journals to travel journals and fantasy sketchbooks, as well as the basic techniques for using pencils, pens, brushes, inks and watercolors to capture your thoughts and impressions.Exactly what goes in your journal is up to you. Sketch quickly to capture a thought or image before it vanishes. Draw or paint with care, to render an idea or vision as realistically as possible. Write about what you see. The choice is yours--and the memories you'll preserve will last a lifetime.

    Our fortunes were once founded on sheep, and this book tells a story of wool and money and history, of merchants and farmers and shepherds, of English yeomen and how they got their freedom, and above all, of the soil. Sheep have helped define our culture and topography, impacting on everything from accent and idiom, architecture, roads and waterways, to social progression and wealth. With his eye for the idiosyncratic, Philip meets the native breeds that thrive in this country; he tells stories about each breed, meets their shepherds and owners, learns about their past - and confronts the present realities of sheep farming. Along the way, Philip meets the people of the countryside and their many professions: the mole-catchers, the stick-makers, the tobacco-twisters and clog-wrights. He explores this artisan heritage as he re-discovers the countryside, and finds a lifestyle parallel to modern existence, struggling to remain unchanged - and at its heart, always sheep.

    B. White was obeying that oft-repeated maxim: "Write what you know." Helpless pigs, silly geese, clever spiders, greedy rats-White knew all of these characters in the barns and stables where he spent his favorite hours. Painfully shy his entire life, "this boy," White once wrote of himself, "felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people." It's all the more impressive, therefore, how many people have felt a kinship with E. B. White. With Charlotte's Web, which has gone on to sell more than 45 million copies, the man William Shawn called "the most companionable of writers" lodged his own character, the avuncular author, into the hearts of generations of readers.In The Story of Charlotte's Web, Michael Sims shows how White solved what critic Clifton Fadiman once called "the standing problem of the juvenile-fantasy writer: how to find, not another Alice, but another rabbit hole" by mining the raw ore of his childhood friendship with animals in Mount Vernon, New York. translating his own passions and contradictions, delights and fears, into an all-time classic. Blending White's correspondence with the likes of Ursula Nordstrom, James Thurber, and Harold Ross, the E. B. White papers at Cornell, and the archives of Harper Collins and the New Yorker into his own elegant narrative, Sims brings to life the shy boy whose animal stories--real and imaginary--made him famous around the world.

    A quotation for every picture is also included taken from Virgil, Shakespeare, Herman Melville, D.H. Lawrence, Eugene Delacroix and others.

    I wasn't always called Bodacious. I must have been called something else in my kitten-hood in the nearby city of Kilkenny, but it's all a bit of a mystery to My Human. As far as she's concerned, I appeared one day and have never left. It's a secret I plan to keep.’Written from the perspective of Bodacious the cat, this is a beautifully written memoir of Bodacious’s life on the farm and everything that entails – early mornings, frosty starts, beautiful sunrises, adventurous rare-breed Zwartbles sheep, hard work, entertaining animals, mouth-watering food, kind people and idyllic country living with its highs and lows.The Shepherd often tells Bodacious her favourite story of how she went out to buy red ribbon to wrap a gift for her friend, but instead came home with a gift for herself: a daring, assertive, ambitious cat looking for a home. But soon The Shepherd realises she needs Bodacious as much as he needs her. As soon as he arrives, Bodacious saunters around the farm like he owns the place and immediately establishes himself as Top Cat. But Bodacious isn’t content to pad round the house and curl up by the Aga, and soon he befriends a farm cat called Oscar who trains him in the ways of the farm. As well as Oscar, Bodacious gets to know all the other animals on the farm — cats Miss Marley and Ovenmitt, the scruffy border collie/fox terrier-cross called Pepper, and The Big Fellow, to name a few.With wonderful characterisation, humour, sharp observation, and a plucky attitude, Bodacious shows us the ropes of Black Sheep Farm. As we soak in the atmosphere of the house, the orchards and the fields, we also learn how this Top Cat Shepherd got his name – by being 'Big, bold, beautiful, bolshie', as his Shepherd always says…