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.

    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)

    in his home.Dan recounts the first trip day by day, the highs of being a homeowner where every room has a view that can change daily, the lows of having steam burst from below deck and an overheating engine and everything in between from the perfect natural surrounds to the long hard days of lock working.After the long trip home we are then given a view of his first year onboard as Tilly the narrowboat is transformed into a full time home and the seasons bring their own tint to boat life, particularly a winter that wont soon be forgotten.Written with honesty and humour Dan gives readers an insight into living on a boat, his own life and personality and why people in his local area instantly know who someone is referring to when they say "The Narrowboat Lad".

    In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world’s birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across forty-one countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species—by far the biggest birding year on record.This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe. By pursuing the freest creatures on the planet, Noah gains a unique perspective on the world they share with us—and offers a hopeful message that even as many birds face an uncertain future, more people than ever are working to protect them.

    The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more, gathered from decades spent walking the landscape around his home and around the world. Whether you’re walking in the country or city, along a coastline, or by night, this is the ultimate resource on what the land, sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and clouds can reveal—if you only know how to look!

    Unlike the rest of the world's archipelagoes, it still has 95 percent of its prehuman quota of species. Wildlife of the Galapagos is the most superbly illustrated and comprehensive identification guide ever to the natural splendor of these incomparable islands--islands today threatened by alien species and diseases that have diminished but not destroyed what so enchanted Darwin on his arrival there in 1835. Covering over 200 commonly seen birds, mammals, reptiles, invertebrates, and plants, it reveals the archipelago's striking beauty through more than 400 color photographs, maps, and drawings and well-written, informative text. While the Galapagos Giant Tortoise, the Galapagos Sea Lion, and the Flightless Cormorant are recognized the world over, these thirty-three islands--in the Pacific over 600 miles from mainland Ecuador--are home to many more unique but less famous species. Here, reptiles well outnumber mammals, for they were much better at drifting far from a continent the archipelago was never connected with; the largest native land mammals are rice rats. The islands' sixty resident bird species include the only penguin to breed entirely in the tropics and to inhabit the Northern Hemisphere. There is a section offering tips on photography in the Equatorial sunlight, and maps of visitors' sites as well as information on the archipelago's history, climate, geology, and conservation. Wildlife of the Galapagos is the perfect companion for anyone who wants to know what so delighted Darwin. Covers over 200 commonly seen species including birds, mammals, reptiles, invertebrates, plants, and coastal and marine life Illustrated with over 400 color photographs, maps, and drawings; includes maps of visitors' sites Written by wildlife experts with extensive knowledge of the area Includes information on the history, climate, geology, and conservation of the islands The most complete identification guide to the wildlife of the Galapagos

    Based on Monk's journal entries written daily along the way, readers are afforded the up-close and intimate privilege of witnessing his very real trials and triumphs, and each incredible, beautiful moment as he experienced it. Anyone who has hiked, or plans on hiking the Appalachian Trail, lovers of nature, and those who know what it's like to accomplish a seemingly insurmountable feat will relish the uplifting story of Monk's successful, 2,189-mile trek. With every milestone achieved throughout his life-changing, unbelievably difficult journey, Monk paints a magnificent portrait of the outdoors, and what it's like to fully immerse oneself in nature's glorious, awe-inspiring-and challenging-beauty.

    But what if your canoeing partner brings along a satellite phone to use in case of an emergency? And, struck by the novelty of anywhere-on-earth communication, he proceeds to use the phone to check in with his law office, his wife, kids, sisters, father, and friends? Noted wilderness traveler and author Ted Kerasote deals with just such a situation as he journeys along the Horton River through the largest ice-free, roadless area left on Earth, a stunning wilderness of grizzly bears, caribou, and migrating birds. Between navigating rapids, slipping around musk ox and grizzlies, and being pinned down by Arctic storms, the two friends prod each other into a finer understanding of love, marriage, parenting, and the meaning of solitude in an increasingly wired world. Contrasting his own experiences with those of the regions earliest explorers--Sir John Franklin and Vilhjalmur Stefansson--Kerasote provides a compelling and humorous take on how travelers from any age adjust to being away from their civilizations and how getting "out there" has inevitably changed but has also remained the same--especially if you shut off the phone.

    Maybe not all that unusual a thing to do in the seventies, but what Kenn was searching for was a little different: not sex, drugs, God, or even self, but birds. A report of a rare bird would send him hitching nonstop from Pacific to Atlantic and back again. When he was broke he would pick fruit or do odd jobs to earn the fifty dollars or so that would last him for weeks. His goal was to set a record - most North American species seen in a year - but along the way he began to realize that at this breakneck pace he was only looking, not seeing. What had been a game became a quest for a deeper understanding of the natural world. Kingbird Highway is a unique coming-of-age story, combining a lyrical celebration of nature with wild, and sometimes dangerous, adventures, starring a colorful cast of characters.

    He brings the animal and human characters alive against the background of the jungle and the excitement and danger their co-existence generates.

    But did he really want to be a birder? Didn't that mean he'd be forced to eat granola? And wear a man-pouch? Before he knew it, though, he was lost to birding mania. Early mornings in Central Park gave way to weekend mornings wandering around Pennsylvania, which morphed into weeklong trips to Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Florida--anywhere the birds were. A Supremely Bad Idea is one man's account of an epic journey around America, all in search of the rarest and most beautiful birds the country has to offer. But the birds are only part of it. There are also his crazy companions, Don and Donna Graffiti, who obsess over Dempsey's culinary limitations and watch in horror as an innocent comment in a store in Arizona almost turns into an international incident; as a trip through wild Florida turns into a series of (sometimes poetic) fisticuffs; and as he teeters at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, a displaced Brit falling in love all over again, this time with his adopted country. Both a paean to avian beauty and a memoir of the back roads of America, A Supremely Bad Idea is a supremely fun comic romp: an environmentally sound This Is Spinal Tap with binoculars.

    Spending nearly half the year in a 7' x 7' tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico, his tasks were simple: keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke.Fire Season is Connors's remarkable reflection on work, our place in the wild, and the charms of solitude. The landscape over which he keeps watch is rugged and roadless — it was the first region in the world to be officially placed off limits to industrial machines — and it typically gets hit by lightning more than 30,000 times per year. Connors recounts his days and nights in this forbidding land, untethered from the comforts of modern life: the eerie pleasure of being alone in his glass-walled perch with only his dog Alice for company; occasional visits from smokejumpers and long-distance hikers; the strange dance of communion and wariness with bears, elk, and other wild creatures; trips to visit the hidden graves of buffalo soldiers slain during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century; and always the majesty and might of lightning storms and untamed fire.Written with narrative verve and startling beauty, and filled with reflections on his literary forebears who also served as lookouts — among them Edward Abbey, Jack Kerouac, Norman Maclean, and Gary Snyder — Fire Season is a book to stand the test of time.

     What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father? Richard Koeppel's obsession began at the age of eleven, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher and promptly jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he added an astonishing 517 birds to that list on a single trip to Kenya. Soon after, he ended the last romantic relationship he would ever have, scaled down his medical practice, and decided to see every bird on earth, becoming a "Big Lister," a member of a subculture of competitive bird-watchers worldwide, all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected more than 7,000 species (of a known 9,600), becoming one of about ten people ever to do so. "To See Every Bird on Earth" explores the thrill of this chase, the all-absorbing crusade at the expense of all else, and travel, to places both dangerous and dull, for the sake of making a check mark in a notebook. It's also the story of obsession-answering the questions why list? and why birds?-and how it defines us. A riveting glimpse into a fascinating subculture, To See Every Bird on Earth traces the love, loss, and reconnection between a father and a son, and explains why birds are so critical to the human search for our place in the world.

    In this, his last book completed just before his death, Sigurd F. Olson guides readers through his wide-ranging memories of a lifetime dedicated to the preservation of the wilderness.

    Nelson was the host of the national public radio series, "Encounters" Nelson was an anthropologist who lived with Alaska Native tribes and spoke both Inupiag and Koyukon Based on Nelson's journals and interviews with Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Rick Bass, and others "He listened to his [Native Alaskan] teachers, immersed himself in their landscapes as a naturalist, and became, without intending to, a great teacher himself." --Barry Lopez, from the forewordBefore his death in 2019, cultural anthropologist, author, and radio producer Richard K. Nelson's work focused primarily on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and, more generally, on the relationships between people and nature. Nelson lived for extended periods in Athabaskan and Alaskan Eskimo villages, experiences which inspired his earliest written works, including Hunters of the Northern Ice In Raven's Witness, Lentfer tells Nelson's story--from his midwestern childhood to his first experiences with Native culture in Alaska through his own lifelong passion for the land where he so belonged. Nelson was the author of the bestselling The Island Within and Heart and Blood. The recipient of multiple honorary degrees and numerous literary awards, he regularly packed auditoriums when he spoke. His depth of experience allowed him to become an intermediary between worlds. This is his story.