Animal Topics / Birds and Birding

New York, New York, U.S.A.: Smithmark Publishers, Incorporated, 1991. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Kirshner, Dr. David. Humans have always been fascinated by birds. Dazzled by their colors, and soothed by their melodious songs, humans are perhaps most in awe of birds' ability to fly. Although quite uniform in anatomical terms, birds display a breathtaking diversity of color and form. The one feature that unites this diverse assemblage is the possession of feathers - the defining characteristic of birds. This beautifully illustrated book, with more than 200 magnificent color photographs and 150 original paintings, maps, and diagrams, presents an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of the natural history of birds. The authoritative text has been written by the world's leading ornithologists and presents the most recent scientific findings in an interesting and stimulating way. 240 pages including an extensive index. The binding has very light wear at the corners, light wear at the spine ends, and a few bumps at the bottom front and back. Folio - over 12" - 15" tall. more information

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Oxford, England: Oxford Univ Press, 2000. First Printing. Hard Cover. New/New. Wilczur, Jan. The Great Auk is one of the world's best known extinct birds. On land it was clumsy and awkward, but in the sea, where it spent a large part of the year, it was perfectly adapted for swift and efficient movement. By the beginning of the 19th century sightings of the bird had become rare and only a few decades later even the most assiduous explorers could not find it. What happened to the Great Auk? The author pieces together all of the important historical data and takes us on a tour of some of the wildest and most remote communities on earth. We travel to Labrador, the Scottish Island of St. Kilda, Newfoundland, and follow intrepid naturalists as they put to sea in search of the very last of the Great Auks. 227 pages with appendices, bibliography and index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.A.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/New. More than any other bird, the osprey symbolizes the New England coast, as Roger Tory Peterson once noted. Known also as fish hawks, ospreys - with their magnificent six-foot wingspand and dark masks - are the only raptors to five fully into the water to catch their prey. David Gessner sets himself on a quest: to watch these great birds of prey and learn about their astonishing comeback to the Atlantic coast after a twenty-year absence. Over the course of a full nesting season - from March, when the ospreys return from their wintering grounds until September, when they migrate back to South America - Gessner immerses himself in the lives of four pairs of hawks. By bike, kayak, and on foot, he takes the reader through the beautiful landscape of Cape Cod and details the intricacies of the ospreys' day-to-day living: Nest-building, courship, giving birth, first flights, and murder of one fledgling by another and, most captivating of all, the ospreys' swift and forceful dive into the sea. In the process, Gessner discovers an intimacy with the land and learns about resiliency and hope. 286 pages including selected bibliography. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Shelburne, Vermont, U.S.A.: Chapters Pub Ltd, 1994. No Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Wolf, Mimi Hoppe. Why are tropical birds like parrots and quetzels so much more colorful than any feathered resident of temperate lands? How can a vulture soaring thousands of feet above the canopy spot a dead rodent no bigger than a mouse in the rain forest? What permits sparrow-size antbirds not only to survive but to thrive among relentless hordes of army ants that devour every other living thing in their path? This is the book that picks up where field guides leave off, and is at once practical, accurate and as endlessly fascinating as the species whose lives it reveals. 304 pages including an index, bibliography, and illustrations. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, NY, U.S.A.: Soho Press, Incorporated, 1997. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Roberta inherits a ranch from her forefathers. They acquired the ranch at a time when using up the land was considered fine, but she doesn't feel that way. She converts her ranch into a rehabilitation center for birds of prey. This book was inspired by the 1971 Endangered Species Act, and a true story. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Picador USA, 2001. First Softcover Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. An Esquire Best Book of the Year, the ostrich is one of nature's misfits: A gigantic bird that can neither fly nor sing. But the fin-de-siecle fetish for feathers made ostrich plumes more precious than gold. Rob Nixon grew up near the South African desert where ostriches first boomed, and had an early passion for the outsize bird. Later, his rejection of apartheid led him to immigrate to the United States, where he encountered a new wave of ostrich mania: American ranchers were trying to convert the gawky bird into a low-cal cuisine. Part memoir, part travelogue, Dreambirds is a natural history of a fantasy and a beautifully crafted, candid revelation of a man's soul. 289 pages. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Austin, Texas, U.S.A.: Univ of Texas Pr, 1987. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/No Jacket. Various Artists. This information-packed book is really two books in one. The Life of a Bird section tells what it is like to be a bird. It is an account of survival, of the advantages and disadvantages in the various methods of growing up, moulting, feeding, migrating, breeding - of adapting or succumbing to the multiplicity of threats to its existence. The Directory section gives over 1,500 colour paintings of birds of different ages, sexes and seasons; maps of the distribution of the species that breeed or are regularly seen in Europe; and extensive information on the appearance, status, voice, habitat, nest, eggs, broods, incubation, young, development and food for each of 429 species. A great book for naturalists! 320 pages including an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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