New Title

 

1) Loxton, Daniel and Donald R. Prothero. Abominable Science: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids. 2013. Columbia University Press. Hardbound: 411 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.

SUMMARY: Throughout our history, humans have been captivated by mythic beasts and legendary creatures. Tales of Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness monster are part of our collective experience. Now comes a book from two dedicated investigators that explores and elucidates the fascinating world of cryptozoology.
Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths. After examining the nature of science and pseudoscience and their relation to cryptozoology, Loxton and Prothero take on Bigfoot; the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and its cross-cultural incarnations; the Loch Ness monster and its highly publicized sightings; the evolution of the Great Sea Serpent; and Mokele Mbembe, or the Congo dinosaur. They conclude with an analysis of the psychology behind the persistent belief in paranormal phenomena, identifying the major players in cryptozoology, discussing the character of its subculture, and considering the challenge it poses to clear and critical thinking in our increasingly complex world.

RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in cryptozoology.

 

Featured Title

 

1) Poonswad, Pilai, Alan Kemp, and Morten Strange. Hornbills of the World: A Photographic Guide. 2013. Draco Publishing and Hornbill Research Foundation. Paperback: 212 pages. Price: $65.00 U.S./ £44.99.

SUMMARY: Hornbills (order: Bucerotiformes) are a group of distinctive and charismatic birds found only in Tropical Asia and sub-saharan Africa. There are two families (Bucorvidae and Bucerotidae), 15 genera, 57 species and 75 subspecies; 32 species are in Asia and 25 species in Africa. They are mostly large in size and have long bills surmounted in many species by a conspicuous casque. Hornbills are omnivorous, but each species feeds predominately on fruits or small animals. Many hornbills are important seed dispersers and benefit the forest ecology. During the breeding season, the female enters a nesting cavity, usually in a large hardwood tree. she seals herself inside the cavity in the majority of species and stays there for much of the nesting cycle while the male brings food to her and her young. Most hornbill species are forest birds, dependant on large expanses of primary tropical rainforest for habitat, while some inhabit drier savanna, but all are vulnerable to disturbance and habitat loss.
      Hornbills of the World is the first authoritative photographic guide to the order. All species are described and illustrated in multiple photographs showing both male and female, and distinct subspecies. There is additional information on:
- Evolution, Distribution and Relationships
- General Habits
- Feeding Ecology
- Breeding Ecology
- Social Life
- Threats and Conservation

RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for anyone with an interest in these birds! This title is available in North Amerca from Buteo Books:

http://www.buteobooks.com/product/13996&affiliate=birdbooker.html

and in the United Kingdom from nhbs.com:

http://www.nhbs.com/hornbills_of_the_world_bkfno_205415.html

The Weekly Birdbooker Report

                                                   Photo copyright: Joe Fuhrman

My WEEKLY Birdbooker Report can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2013/jul/28/scienceandnature-birds

New Titles

 

1) Mooallem, Jon. Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America. 2013. The Penguin Press. Hardbound: 339 pages. Price: $27.95 U.S.
SUMMARY: Journalist Jon Mooallem has watched his little daughter’s world overflow with animals butterfly pajamas, appliquéd owls—while the actual world she’s inheriting slides into a great storm of extinction. Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America’s endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it—from Thomas Jefferson’s celebrations of early abundance to the turn-of the-last-century origins of the teddy bear to the whale-loving hippies of the 1970s. In America, Wild Ones discovers, wildlife has always inhabited the terrain of our imagination as much as the actual land.
      The journey is framed by the stories of three modern-day endangered species: the polar bear, victimized by climate change and ogled by tourists outside a remote northern town; the little-known Lange’s metalmark butterfly, foundering on a shred of industrialized land near San Francisco; and the whooping crane as it’s led on a months-long migration by costumed men in ultralight airplanes. The wilderness that Wild Ones navigates is a scrappy, disorderly place where amateur conservationists do grueling, sometimes preposterous-looking work; where a marketer maneuvers to control the polar bear’s image while Martha Stewart turns up to film those beasts for her show on the Hallmark Channel. Our most comforting ideas about nature unravel. In their place, Mooallem forges a new and affirming vision of the human animal and the wild ones as kindred creatures on an imperfect planet.
      With propulsive curiosity and searing wit, and without the easy moralizing and nature worship of environmental journalism’s older guard, Wild Ones merges reportage, science, and history into a humane and endearing meditation on what it means to live in, and bring a life into, a broken world.

RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in wildlife conservation.

 

 

2) Spawls, Stephen and Glenn Mathews. Kenya: A Natural History. 2012. Bloomsbury/ T & A D Poyser. Hardbound: 448 pages. Price: $95.00 U.S./£50.00.

SUMMARY: For its size, Kenya probably has the most diverse range of habitats of any country in Africa, if not the world. Within its borders there are alpine peaks, montane forests, high plateaux, savannas, lowland forests, coastal woodlands and wetlands, and a string of varied lakes in the Great Rift Valley. The range of wildlife to be found in the region is correspondingly diverse. this book explores the wildlife and habitats in great detail and gives a thorough overview of Kenya's natural history.

RECOMMENDATION: A must have for those with an interest in Kenyan natural history.

 

New Title

 

1) D'Elia, Jesse and Susan M. Haig. California Condors in the Pacific Northwest. 2013. Oregon State University Press. Paperback: 208 pages. Price: $19.95 U.S.

SUMMARY: Despite frequent depiction as a bird of California and the desert southwest, North America’s largest avian scavenger once graced the skies of the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to British Columbia. This important volume documents the condor’s history in the region, from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century, and explores the challenges of reintroduction.

      Jesse D’Elia and Susan Haig investigate the paleontological and observational record as well as the cultural relationships between Native American tribes and condors, providing the most complete assessment to date of the condor’s occurrence in the Pacific Northwest. They evaluate the probable causes of regional extinction and the likelihood that condors once bred in the region, and they assess factors that must be considered in determining whether they could once again thrive in Northwest skies.

      Incorporating the newest research and findings and more than eighty detailed historical accounts of human encounters with these birds of prey, California Condors in the Pacific Northwest sets a new standard for examining the historical record of a species prior to undertaking a reintroduction effort. It is a vital reference for academics, agency decision makers, conservation biologists, and readers interested in Northwest natural history. The volume is beautifully illustrated by Ram Papish and includes a number of previously unpublished photographs.

RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for anyone with an interest in the California Condor.

New Titles

1) Lever, Christopher. The Mandarin Duck. 2013. T & A D Poyser. Hardbound: 192 pages. Price: $80.00 U.S./£50.00.

SUMMARY: The Mandarin Duck is a small and (in the case of the males) spectacularly colourful species of waterfowl. Widely kept in aviaries around the world, populations often escaped to form wild colonies. One of the largest and best-studied is in southern England. Although declining and nowadays surprisingly hard to find, Britain's wild Mandarin population is probably more numerous than that of the duck's true home, China and the Russian Far East, where it is now endangered.
      This Poyser monograph is a detailed account of this beautiful duck's lifestyle and biology, with particular emphasis on invasive populations in Britain and overseas. It is a superb addition to the long-running and acclaimed Poyser series.

RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in the species.

2) Prothero, Donald R.. Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future. 2013. Indiana University Press. Hardbound: 371 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.

SUMMARY: The battles over evolution, climate change, childhood vaccinations, and the causes of AIDS, alternative medicine, oil shortages, population growth, and the place of science in our country—all are reaching a fevered pitch. Many people and institutions have exerted enormous efforts to misrepresent or flatly deny demonstrable scientific reality to protect their nonscientific ideology, their power, or their bottom line. To shed light on this darkness, Donald R. Prothero explains the scientific process and why society has come to rely on science not only to provide a better life but also to reach verifiable truths no other method can obtain. He describes how major scientific ideas that are accepted by the entire scientific community (evolution, anthropogenic global warming, vaccination, the HIV cause of AIDS, and others) have been attacked with totally unscientific arguments and methods. Prothero argues that science deniers pose a serious threat to society, as their attempts to subvert the truth have resulted in widespread scientific ignorance, increased risk of global catastrophes, and deaths due to the spread of diseases that could have been prevented.

RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in science education (or lack thereof).

 

3) Suzuki, Mamoru. Birds' Nests of the World. 2001 (English edition: 2013). Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. Hardbound: 73 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.

SUMMARY: Mr. Mamoru Suzuki was born in Tokyo in 1952. He attended Tokyo College of the Arts, and is a professional artist and keen student of the birds of the world. Mr. Suzuki is a renowned author and illustrator for multiple Japanese artistic books on nature, including The Book of Birds’ Nests; Nest Poems: A collection of poems and illustrations; and the Black Cat Sangoro series.He has published essays about his own collection of birds’ nests, and has exhibited both his artwork and his nests in cities all over the world.

       In the 1990s, Mr. Suzuki began visiting the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology (WFVZ), a non-profit natural history museum in southern California, to draw and paint bird egg and nest materials in the collections.Mr. Suzuki’s artistic books on birds caught the attention of the Staff of the WFVZ, and in 2010, Dr. Linnea Hall (Director of the WFVZ) and Mr. René Corado (Collections Manager) discussed the possibility of translating Mamoru’s 2001 book -- “Birds’ Nests of the World”—from Japanese into English, and the current project was born.

      The book contains breeding information for hundreds of birds of the world, depicted creatively and scientifically.It will serve as a wonderful family learning book, as well as a scientific reference for ornithologists and bird watchers who want to learn more about the nesting and breeding habits of the birds of the world.

RECOMMENDATION: A well illustrated introduction to bird nesting behavior. The book is available here: http://www.wfvz.org/cms/index.php?option=com_oscommerce&osMod=product_info&Itemid=59&catID=41&products_id=164

New Title

 

1) D'Amato, Peter. The Savage Garden, Revised: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants. 2013. Ten Speed Press. Paperback: 374 pages. Price: $25.99 U.S.

SUMMARY: For fifteen years, The Savage Garden has been the number one bestselling bible for those interested in growing carnivorous plants. This new edition is fully revised to include the latest developments and discoveries in the carnivorous plant world, making it the most accurate and up to date book of its kind.
You may be familiar with the Venus flytrap, but did you know that some pitcher plants can—and do—digest an entire rat? Or that there are several hundred species of carnivorous plants on our planet? Beautiful, unusual, and surprisingly easy to grow, flesh-eating plants thrive everywhere from windowsills to outdoor container gardens, in a wide variety of climates. The Savage Garden is the most comprehensive guide to these fascinating oddities, gloriously illustrated with more than 200 color photos. Fully revised with the latest developments in the carnivorous plant world, this new edition includes:
• All the basics—from watering and feeding to modern advances in artificial lighting, soil, and fertilizers.
• Detailed descriptions of hundreds of plants, including many of the incredible new species that have been recently discovered and hybridized.
• Cultivation and propagation information for all the plant families: pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, sundews, rainbow plants, bladderworts, and many other peculiar plants from the demented mind of Mother Nature.
      Whether you’re a beginner with your first flytrap or an expert looking for the latest exotic specimen, this classic book has everything you need to grow your very own little garden of horrors.

 RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for anyone with an interest in these plants!