But nothing came close to nature, particularly birds. How had he never noticed such beauty before? Soon, every avian encounter took him one step closer to accepting who he is.The positive change in Joe's wellbeing was so profound that he started a blog to record his experience. Three years later he has become a spokesperson for the benefits of birdwatching, spreading the word everywhere from Radio 4 to Downing Street.In this groundbreaking book filled with practical advice, Joe explains the impact that birdwatching had on his life, and invites the reader to discover these extraordinary effects for themselves.

    Her reward for the grueling work of rescuing birds—such as feeding baby hummingbirds every twenty minutes all day long—is her empathy with them and the satisfaction of knowing the world is a birdier and more beautiful place. The Bluebird Effect is about the change that's set in motion by one single act, such as saving an injured bluebird—or a hummingbird, swift, or phoebe. Each of the twenty five chapters covers a different species, and many depict an individual bird, each with its own personality, habits, and quirks. And each chapter is illustrated with Zickefoose's stunning watercolor paintings and drawings. Not just individual tales about the trials and triumphs of raising birds, The Bluebird Effect mixes humor, natural history, and memoir to give readers an intimate story of a life lived among wild birds.

    To love and loathe the fox is a British condition."The fox is our apex predator, our most beautiful and clever killer. We have witnessed its wild touch, watched it slink by bins at night and been chilled by its high-pitched scream. And yet we long to stroke the tumbling cubs outside their tunnel homes and watch the vixen stalk the cornfield.There is something about foxes. They captivate us like no other species.Exploring a long and sometimes complicated relationship, The Wild Life of the Fox captures our love – and sometimes loathing – of this magnificent creature in vivid detail and lyrical prose.

    Representatives Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmertt, Tom Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland asked federal inspectors general if the fact that Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, has three close family members who were intimately connected to the Muslim Brotherhood might be affecting U.S. foreign policy, they were called “McCarthites” and “Islamophobes.” But as Frank Gaffney shows in this shocking pamphlet, it is actually worse than these members of Congress imagined. Abedin was herself deeply involved in Brotherhood organizations in the U.S. and she is, moreover, only one of many individuals with Islamist ties now working in sensitive government roles. Gaffney tells who they are, how they are making U.S. social and political institutions friendlier to Islamism, and how they may have tilted U.S. foreign policy in the Brotherhood’s direction.

     From the Aztec plumed serpent to the Christian dove to Plato's vision of the human soul growing wings, religion and philosophy use birds to represent our aspirational selves. Winged creatures appear in mythology and folk tales, and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid, Thoreau, and T. S. Eliot. They've been omens, allegories, and guides; they've been worshipped, eaten, and feared. Birds figure tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White and Peter Matthiessen, and are synonymous with the science of Darwin.Gibson spent years collecting this gorgeously illustrated celebration of centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes. The Bedside Book of Birds is for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity creates to represent its soul.

    Children are given a well-rounded understanding of this beautiful fish: its anatomy, feeding habits and behavior. The following Sharks are featured:* The swift Black Tip Reef Shark* The dangerous Bull Shark* The resourceful Hammerhead Shark* The feared Great White Shark* The stealthy Lemon Shark* The fanged Nurse Shark* The gentle Whale Shark* The deceptive Wobbegong

    This friendly, relatable book is a celebration of the art, science, and delights of bird-watching.How to Know the Birds introduces a new, holistic approach to bird-watching, by noting how behaviors, settings, and seasonal cycles connect with shape, song, color, gender, age distinctions, and other features traditionally used to identify species. With short essays on 200 observable species, expert author Ted Floyd guides us through a year of becoming a better birder, each species representing another useful lesson: from explaining scientific nomenclature to noting how plumage changes with age, from chronicling migration patterns to noting hatchling habits. Dozens of endearing pencil sketches accompany Floyd's charming prose, making this book a unique blend of narrative and field guide. A pleasure for birders of all ages, this witty book promises solid lessons for the beginner and smiles of recognition for the seasoned nature lover.

    In Drawn from Paradise, world renowned BBC broadcaster David Attenborough and artist and author Errol Fuller share their passion for these breathtaking creatures, offering bird lovers and nature aficionados an enthralling collection of interesting facts and stunningly beautiful, very rare hand-painted images of some of the most exotic winged creatures in the world.

    Illustrated throughout, this handbook of birds covers the most common British and European birds in detail.

    Of a Feather traces the colorful origins of American birding: the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes; the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; and the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as Alexander Wilson (a convicted blackmailer) and the endlessly self-mythologizing John James Audubon. Scott Weidensaul also recounts the explosive growth of modern birding that began when an awkward schoolteacher named Roger Tory Peterson published A Field Guide to the Birds in 1934. Today birding counts iPod-wearing teens and obsessive "listers" among its tens of millions of participants, making what was once an eccentric hobby into something so completely mainstream it's now (almost) cool. This compulsively readable popular history will surely find a roost on every birder's shelf.

    For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch.In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.With a new preface.

    Helen Macdonald's Falcon examines the diverse symbolism and roles attached to the falcon throughout the centuries. Macdonald presents a cultural and natural history of the falcon that spans the globe and several millennia. Her wide-ranging survey considers the many facets of the falcon, including conservation efforts; the sport of falconry; and the use of falcons in secret military projects by the Third Reich and the U.S. space program. Falcon also explores the rich imagery of the falcon over history, including the veneration of falcons as gods in ancient Egypt, their role in erotic stories, and even the use of falcons in advertising to promote photocopiers and jet planes. Filled with illustrations and a wealth of fascinating facts, Falcon will be an enjoyable guide for ornithologists, amateur birdwatchers, and nature lovers alike.

    Since that time he has answered thousands of questions about birds, both at his store and while walking down the aisles of the supermarket. The questions have ranged from inquiries about individual species ("Are flamingos really real?") to what and when to feed birds ("Should I bring in my feeders for the summer?") to the down-and-dirty specifics of backyard birding ("Why are the birds dropping poop in my pool?"). Answering the questions has been easy; keeping a straight face has been hard.Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches? is the solution for the beginning birder who already has a book that explains the slight variation between Common Ground-Doves and Ruddy Ground-Doves but who is really much more interested in why birds sing at 4:30 A.M. instead of 7:00 A.M., or whether it's okay to feed bread to birds, or how birds rediscover your feeders so quickly when you've just filled them after a long vacation. Or, for that matter, whether flamingos are really real.

    He didn't want to open a bakery or whatever else executives do when they quit a lucrative but unfulfilling job. He didn't want to think about his failed relationship with "the one" or his potential for ruining a new relationship with "the next one." And he almost certainly didn't want to think about turning forty. And so instead he went birding.Birding was a lifelong passion. It was only among the birds that Neil found a calm that had eluded him in the confusing world of humans. But this time he also found competition. His growing list of species reluctantly catapulted him into a Big Year--a race to find the most birds in one year. His peregrinations across twenty-eight states and six provinces in search of exotic species took him to a hoarfrost-covered forest in Massachusetts to find a Fieldfare; to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to see a rare Nutting's Flycatcher; and to Vancouver for the Red-flanked Bluetail. Neil's Big Year was as unplanned as it was accidental: It was the perfect distraction to life.Neil shocked the birding world by finding 749 species of bird and breaking the long-standing Big Year record. He also surprised himself: During his time among the hummingbirds, tanagers, and boobies, he found a renewed sense of confidence and hope about the world and his place in it.

    More than a place to stalk the white-tail, this is a place to get together, chase armadillos, swap campfire stories, listen to quail, make biscuits, and enjoy the antics of ringtails. It's the sort of place where a man is only as good as his dog, where memories last longer, where the hunter's moon is the perfect light for chasing raccoons. Most important, it is a place to recharge the spirit and renew family ties.