RECOMMENDATION: This is the best photographic guide to the birds of Europe currently available!
The
first field guide to all of the world’s major land habitats―richly
illustrated and packed with essential information to help you get the
most out of your outdoor adventures.
Accurately identifying
and understanding habitats in detail is essential to any birder,
naturalist, outdoor enthusiast, or ecologist who wants to get the most
out of their experiences in the field. Habitats of the World is
the first field guide to the world’s major land habitats―189 in all.
Using the format of a natural history field guide, this compact,
accessible, and comprehensive book features concise identification
descriptions and is richly illustrated―including more than 650 color
photographs of habitats and their wildlife, 150 distribution maps, 200
diagrams, and 150 silhouettes depicting each habitat alongside a human
figure, providing an immediate grasp of its look and scale. Each major
habitat has an illustrated “climate box” that allows easy comparisons
between habitats. Thirty other illustrated boxes present clear
explanations of complex phenomena affecting habitats―from plate
tectonics and mountain formation to fire regimes and climate change.
Requiring no scientific background, Habitats of the World offers
quick and reliable information for anyone who wants a deeper
understanding and appreciation of the habitats around them, whether in
their own backyard or while travelling anywhere in the world.
- Covers 189 of the world’s major land habitats
- Provides all the information you need to quickly and accurately identify and understand habitats anywhere in the world
- Features
concise text, more than 650 color photographs of habitats and their
wildlife, an up-to-date distribution map for each habitat, and hundreds
of helpful diagrams and illustrations
RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for all World traveling birders, naturalists, and biologists!
3) Futuyma, Douglas.
How Birds Evolve explores how evolution has shaped the
distinctive characteristics and behaviors we observe in birds today.
Douglas Futuyma describes how evolutionary science illuminates the
wonders of birds, ranging over topics such as the meaning and origin of
species, the evolutionary history of bird diversity, and the evolution
of avian reproductive behaviors, plumage ornaments, and social
behaviors.
In this multifaceted book, Futuyma examines how birds
evolved from nonavian dinosaurs and reveals what we can learn from the
"family tree" of birds. He looks at the ways natural selection enables
different forms of the same species to persist, and discusses how
adaptation by natural selection accounts for the diverse life histories
of birds and the rich variety of avian parenting styles, mating
displays, and cooperative behaviors. He explains why some parts of the
planet have so many more species than others, and asks what an
evolutionary perspective brings to urgent questions about bird
extinction and habitat destruction. Along the way, Futuyma provides an
insider's perspective on how biologists practice evolutionary science,
from studying the fossil record to comparing DNA sequences among and
within species.
A must-read for bird enthusiasts and curious naturalists, How Birds Evolve
shows how evolutionary biology helps us better understand birds and
their natural history, and how the study of birds has informed all
aspects of evolutionary science since the time of Darwin.
RECOMMENDATION: A readable introduction to the evolution of birds.
4) Sax, Boria.
Avian Illuminations examines the many roles birds have played in
human society, from food, messengers, deities, and pets, to omens,
muses, timekeepers, custodians, hunting companions, decorative motifs,
and, most importantly, embodiments of our aspirations. Boria Sax
narrates the history of our relationships with a host of bird species,
including crows, owls, parrots, falcons, eagles, nightingales,
hummingbirds, and many more. Along the way, Sax describes how birds’
nesting has symbolized human romance, how their flight has inspired
inventors throughout history, and he concludes by showing that the
interconnections between birds and humans are so manifold that a world
without birds would effectively mean an end to human culture itself.
Beautifully illustrated, Avian Illuminations is a superb overview of humanity’s long and rich association with our avian companions.
RECOMMENDATION: A well illustrated introduction to the Human cultural history with birds.
5) Library of America. Hardbound: 743 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.
Pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson explores the wonders of the
Earth's oceans in these classics of American science and nature
writing.
Rachel Carson is perhaps most famous as the author of Silent Spring,
but she was first and foremost a "poet of the sea" and the three books
collected in this deluxe Library of America volume are classics of
American science and nature writing.
Under the Sea-Wind
(1941), Carson's lyrical debut, offers an intimate account of maritime
ecology through the eyes of three of the ocean's denizens, the
individual lives of sanderling, mackerel, and eel dramatically
intertwined in the enduring ebb and flow of the tides.
The Sea Around Us
(1951)--a winner of the National Book Award--draws on a wealth of
oceanographic, meteorological, biological, and historical research to
present its subject on a grand, biospheric scale, revealing not only
many mysteries of the still-unfathomed depths, but a reverence for the
sea as a source of global climate and of life itself.
Concluding Carson's "sea trilogy," The Edge of the Sea (1955)
explores the habits of the many small creatures that live on shorelines
and in tidepools accessible to any beachcomber: part identification
guide, part hymn to ecological complexity, it is a book that conveys the
"sense of wonder" in nature for which Carson is justly celebrated.
At
a moment when overfishing, pollution, and global warming are causing
catastrophic changes to marine environments worldwide, Carson's
lyrically detailed accounts of these environments offer a timely
reminder of their beauty, fragility, and immense consequence for human
life.
RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for anyone with an interest in Rachel Carson's works!
6) Astro, Richard and Donald Kohrs. Oregon State University Press. Paperback: 232 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.
Between Pacific Tides by Edward F. Ricketts and Jack Calvin is
arguably the most important book about marine ecology on the Pacific
coast of North America. At a time when almost all studies of life in the
intertidal zones were taxonomic, Ricketts and Calvin revolutionized the
field and helped to lay the groundwork for studies of the impact of
environmental change on the natural world. Though Ricketts is perhaps
best known as a quirky character in John Steinbeck’s fiction, he was a
serious marine biologist who conducted pioneering research.
In A Tidal Odyssey, literary scholar Richard Astro and archivist Donald Kohrs explore how Between Pacific Tides came
to be, covering both the writing process and the long journey to
publication. They tell three interwoven stories: the development of
ecology as a valuable new approach to the study of marine life in the
intertidal zone; a case study of how new and dynamic science is
published and reaches a larger audience; and the intellectual
development of Ed Ricketts.
Not only a scientist but also an
expert in music, philosophy, history, and literature, Ricketts and his
work impacted a broad range of writers and scholars. A number of these
intellectual figures appear in A Tidal Odyssey, including Ricketts’s
co-author, Jack Calvin, and illustrator, Ritch Lovejoy; mythologist
Joseph Campbell; novelist Henry Miller; composer John Cage; and of
course John Steinbeck. The authors have drawn extensively from
Ricketts’s archive, including previously unpublished letters, memoranda,
notebooks, and photographs.
A Tidal Odyssey is for anyone
interested in the world of Ed Ricketts as well as marine biology,
intertidal ecology, and how ecological studies underpin our
understanding of the impact of environmental change on the well-being of
our planet.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for anyone with an interest in Ricketts's Between Pacific Tides.