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Books : Outdoors & Nature : Fauna
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On Valentine's Day 1985, biologist Stacey O'Brien first met a four-day-old baby barn owl -- a fateful encounter that would turn into an astonishing 19-year saga. With nerve damage in one wing, the owlet's ability to fly was forever compromised, and he had no hope of surviving on his own in the wild. O'Brien, a young assistant in the owl laboratory at Caltech, was immediately smitten, promising to care for the helpless owlet and give him a permanent home. Wesley the Owl is the funny, poignant story of their dramatic two decades together.With both a tender heart and a scientist's eye, O'Brien studied Wesley's strange habits intensively and first-hand -- and provided a mice-only diet that required her to buy the rodents in bulk (28,000 over the owl's lifetime). As Wesley grew, she snapped photos of him at every stage like any proud parent, recording his life from a helpless ball of fuzz to a playful, clumsy adolescent to a gorgeous, gold-and-white, macho adult owl with a heart-shaped face and an outsize personality that belied his 18-inch stature. Stacey and Wesley's bond deepened as she discovered Wesley's individual personality, subtle emotions, and playful nature that could also turn fiercely loyal and protective -- though she could have done without Wesley's driving away her would-be human suitors!
O'Brien also brings us inside the prestigious research community, a kind of scientific Hogwarts where resident owls sometimes flew freely from office to office and eccentric, brilliant scientists were extraordinarily committed to studying and helping animals; all of them were changed by the animal they loved. As O'Brien gets close to Wesley, she makes important discoveries about owl behavior, intelligence, and communication, coining the term "The Way of the Owl" to describe his inclinations: he did not tolerate lies, held her to her promises, and provided unconditional love, though he was not beyond an occasional sulk. When O'Brien develops her own life-threatening illness, the biologist who saved the life of a helpless baby bird is herself rescued from death by the insistent love and courage of this wild animal.
Enhanced by wonderful photos, Wesley the Owl is a thoroughly engaging, heartwarming, often funny story of a complex, emotional, non-human being capable of reason, play, and, most important, love and loyalty. It is sure to be cherished by animal lovers everywhere.
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Fast on the heels of the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance comes The Book of Animal Ignorance, a fun, fact-filled bestiary that is sure to delight animal lovers everywhere. Arranged alphabetically from aardvark to worm, here are one hundred of the most interesting members of the animal kingdom explained, dissected, and illustrated, with the trademark wit and wisdom of John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.
Did you know, for instance, that
• when a young albatross takes wing, it may stay aloft for ten years
• vampire bat saliva—unsurprisingly, when you think about it—is the source of the world’s most powerful blood thinning drug, appropriately called draculin
• bombardier beetles fire a boiling chemical spray out of their rears at 300 pulses per second
• a bald eagle’s feathers weigh twice as much as its bones
• a giant tortoise recently died at the documented age of 255
• octopuses are dexterous enough to unscrew tops from jars
• spider silk is so light that a strand long enough to circle the world would weigh as much as a bar of soap?
So meet the water bears that can live in suspension for hundreds of years, the parasite carried by your cat that makes men grumpy and women promiscuous, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the ends of their tongues.
If you still think a pangolin is a musical instrument, that hyenas are dogs, or that sheep are pointless and stupid, The Book of Animal Ignorance has arrived just in time.
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Drawing from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Songs presents the most notable North American birds including the rediscovered Ivory-billed Woodpecker in a stunning new format. Renowned bird biologist Les Beletsky provides a succinct description of each of the 250 birds profiled, with an emphasis on their distinctive songs. Lavish full-color illustrations accompany each account, while a sleek, built-in digital audio player holds 250 corresponding songs and calls. In his foreword, North American bird expert and distinguished natural historian Jon L. Dunn shares insights gained from a lifetime of passionate study. Complete with the most up-to-date and scientifically accurate information, Bird Songs is the first book to capture the enchantment of these beautiful birds in words, pictures, and song. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, located in Ithaca, New York, is a nonprofit institution focused on birds and whose mission is to interpret and conserve the earth's biological diversity through research. The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab is the major source of sound recordings of birds for research, education, conservation, the media, and commercial products.Listen here
Trumpeter Swan
Laughing Gull
Eastern Bluebird
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Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism—because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us.
In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity.
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In celebration of the centennial of Roger Tory Peterson's birth comes a historic collaboration among renowned birding experts and artists to preserve and enhance the Peterson legacy. This new book combines the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds and Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds into one volume, filled with accessible, concise information and including almost three hours of video podcasts to make bird watching even easier.
• 40 new paintings
• Digital updates to Peterson's original paintings, reflecting the latest knowledge of bird identification
• All new maps for the most up-to-date range information available
• Text rewritten to cover the U.S. and Canada in one guide
• Larger trim size accommodates range maps on every spread
• Contributors include: Michael DiGiorgio, Jeff Gordon, Paul Lehman, Michael O'Brien, Larry Rosche, and Bill Thompson III
• Includes URL to register for access to video podcasts
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A groundbreaking work of science that confirms, for the first time, the independent existence of the mind–and demonstrates the possibilities for human control over the workings of the brain.
Conventional science has long held the position that 'the mind' is merely an illusion, a side effect of electrochemical activity in the physical brain. Now in paperback, Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley's groundbreaking work, The Mind and the Brain, argues exactly the opposite: that the mind has a life of its own.Dr Schwartz, a leading researcher in brain dysfunctions, and Wall Street Journal science columnist Sharon Begley demonstrate that the human mind is an independent entity that can shape and control the functioning of the physical brain. Their work has its basis in our emerging understanding of adult neuroplasticity–the brain's ability to be rewired not just in childhood, but throughout life, a trait only recently established by neuroscientists.
Through decades of work treating patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), Schwartz made an extraordinary finding: while following the therapy he developed, his patients were effecting significant and lasting changes in their own neural pathways. It was a scientific first: by actively focusing their attention away from negative behaviors and toward more positive ones, Schwartz's patients were using their minds to reshape their brains–and discovering a thrilling new dimension to the concept of neuroplasticity.
The Mind and the Brain follows Schwartz as he investigates this newly discovered power, which he calls self–directed neuroplasticity or, more simply, mental force. It describes his work with noted physicist Henry Stapp and connects the concept of 'mental force' with the ancient practice of mindfulness in Buddhist tradition. And it points to potential new applications that could transform the treatment of almost every variety of neurological dysfunction, from dyslexia to stroke–and could lead to new strategies to help us harness our mental powers. Yet as wondrous as these implications are, perhaps even more important is the philosophical dimension of Schwartz's work. For the existence of mental force offers convincing scientific evidence of human free will, and thus of man's inherent capacity for moral choice.
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HOW DO PENGUINS survive in frigid conditions? What happens at a research station in Antarctica? How long can an emperor penguin go without food? What other creatures live in the Antarctic? Find out the answers to these questions and more in the Magic Tree House Research Guide: Penguins and Antarctica.
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Take an unforgettable journey through the English countryside and into the homes of its inhabitants-- four-legged and otherwise-- with the world's best-loved animal doctor.For over 25 years-- since All Creatures Great and Small was first published-- readers have delighted to the storytelling genius of James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian whose fascinating vignettes brim with the wonder of life, animal and human.Whether struggling mightily to position a calf for birthing, or comforting a lonely old man whose beloved dog and only companion has died, Herriot's heartwarming and often hilarious stories of his first years as a country vet perfectly depict the wonderful relationship between man and animal-- and they intimately portray a man whose humor, compassion , and love of life are truly inspiring.
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In her most original, provocative, and eloquently moving book since Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams gives us a luminous chronicle of finding beauty in a broken world. Always an impassioned and far-sighted advocate for a just relationship between the natural world and humankind, Williams has broadened her concerns over the past several years to include a reconfiguration of family and community in her search for a deeper understanding of what it means to be human in an era of physical and spiritual fragmentation.
Williams begins in Ravenna, Italy, where “jeweled ceilings became lavish tales” through the art of mosaic. She discovers that mosaic is not just an art form but a form of integration, and when she returns to the American Southwest, her physical and spiritual home, and observes a clan of prairie dogs on the brink of extinction, she apprehends an ecological mosaic created by a remarkable species in the sagebrush steppes of the Colorado Plateau. And, finally, Williams travels to a small village in Rwanda, where, along with fellow artists, she joins survivors of the 1994 genocide and builds a memorial literally from the rubble of war, an act that becomes a spark for social change and healing.
A singular meditation on how the natural and human worlds both collide and connect in violence and beauty, this is a work of uncommon perceptions that dares to find intersections between arrogance and empathy, tumult and peace, constructing a narrative of hopeful acts by taking that which is broken and creating something whole.
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Birding is the fastest growing wildlife-related activity in the U.S., and even conservative estimates put the current number of U.S. birders at 50 million. According to the New York Times, some authorities predict that by 2050 there will be more than 100 million—and the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America will be the essential reference for field identification and the cornerstone of any birder's library. This is the ultimate, indispensable bird field guide—comprehensive, authoritative, portable, sturdy, and easier than ever to use.
Among the the new edition's key elements and practical improvements: Every North American species—more than 960, including a new section on accidental birds—classified according to the latest official American Ornithologists' Union checklist 4,000 full-color illustrations by the foremost bird artists at work todayand newly updated range maps that draw on the latest data New durable cover for added protection against adverse weather, plus informative quick-reference flaps that double as placemarkers New reader-friendly features like thumbtabs that make locating key sections faster and easier, and a quick-find index to direct users straight to the information they need.
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Take a peek! Just turn these pages and discover a world filled with whimsical habitats constructed from natural materials. The idea is to entice a fairy to stop by for a visit. From rustic dwellings to fairy mansions, these small structures are appearing in woods, parks, backyard gardens and even at the beach. But beware! Building fairy houses can be addictive for all ages. Symptoms include exploring the outdoors, being creative, sparking the imagination and discovering Nature s enchantment. You know you re really hooked when you start building fairy houses ... everywhere!
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Benjamin Mee decided to uproot his family and move them to an unlikely new home: a dilapidated zoo on the English countryside, complete with over 200 exotic animals. It was his dream to refurbish the zoo and run it as a family business. There was much work to be done, and none of it easy. Tigers broke loose, money ran low, the staff grew skeptical, and family tensions ran high. Then tragedy struck. His wife had a recurrence of a brain tumor, forcing Benjamin and his children to face the heartbreak of illness and the devastating loss of a wife and mother. But inspired by her memory and the healing power of the incredible family of animals they had grown to love, Benjamin and his kids resovled to move forward. The Mee family opened the gates of the revitalized zoo in July 2007.
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How is Animals in Translation different from every other animal book ever published?Animals in Translation is like no other animal book because of Temple Grandin. As an animal scientist and a person with autism, her professional training and personal history have created a perspective like no other thinker in the field, and this is her exciting, groundbreaking view of the intersection of autism and animal.
Unlike other well-known writers in the field of animal behavior -- When Elephants Weep by psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaleff Masson, How Dogs Think by psychologist and dog trainer Stanley Coren, and The Hidden Life of Dogs by anthropologist Elizabeth Marsha Thomas -- Temple Grandin is an animal scientist who has devoted the last 30 years of her life to the study of animals. Animals in Translation is the culmination of that life's work -- a book whose sweep is huge, including just about anything that gallops, trots, slithers, walks, or flies.
Temple Grandin is like no other author on the subject of animals because of her training and because of her autism; understanding animals is in her blood and her bones.
Animals in Translation ...
* redefines consciousness and argues that language is not a requirement for consciousness
* categorizes autism as a way station on the road from animals to humans
* explores the "Interpreter" in the normal human brain that filters out detail, creating an unintentional blindness that animals and autistics do not suffer from
* applies the autism theory of "hyper-specificity' to animals, meaning that there is no forest, only trees, trees, and more trees
* argues that the single worst thing you cando to an animal is make it feel afraid
* examines how humans and animals use their emotions, including to predict the future
* compares animals to autistic savants, in fact declaring that animals may be autistic savants, with special forms of genius that normal people cannot see
* explains that most animals have "super-human" skills: animals have animal genius
* reveals the abilities handicapped people, and animals, have that normal people don't
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Essentials of Human Anatomy & Physiology, Eighth Edition continues to set the standard for A&P texts with an enhanced media package and new active learning features that help readers better visualize and understand the structure and function of the human body. New information on hot topics like DNA fingerprinting, bone implants for children, stem cell research, and obesity draws readers into the material. Elaine Marieb's clear and friendly writing style emphasizes the relevance of anatomy and physiology to readers' lives and careers. It clarifies concepts, defines key terms, and offers just the right balance of anatomy, physiology, and clinical coverage to make the content complete without being overwhelming. The Human Body: An Orientation, Basic Chemistry, Cells and Tissues, Skin and Body Membranes, The Skeletal System, The Muscular System, The Nervous System, Special Senses, The Endocrine System, Blood, The Cardiovascular System, The Lymphatic System and Body Defenses, The Respiratory System, The Digestive System and Body Metabolism, The Urinary System, The Reproductive System. For all readers interested in learning the essentials of human anatomy and physiology.
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On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age thirty-one. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you."
What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the thirty years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous—two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds. Alex's brain was the size of a shelled walnut, and when Irene and Alex first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Yet, over the years, Alex proved many things. He could add. He could sound out words. He understood concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none. He was capable of thought and intention. Together, Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality: We live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures.
The fame that resulted was extraordinary. Yet there was a side to their relationship that never made the papers. They were emotionally connected to one another. They shared a deep bond far beyond science. Alex missed Irene when she was away. He was jealous when she paid attention to other parrots, or even people. He liked to show her who was boss. He loved to dance. He sometimes became bored by the repetition of his tests, and played jokes on her. Sometimes they sniped at each other. Yet nearly every day, they each said, "I love you."
Alex and Irene stayed together through thick and thin—despite sneers from experts, extraordinary financial sacrifices, and a nomadic existence from one university to another. The story of their thirty-year adventure is equally a landmark of scientific achievement and of an unforgettable human-animal bond.
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Thirty handsome illustrations capture the legendary grace and beauty of the horse. Depictions of mounted riders; horses racing across fields; mares with their colts; horses walking, galloping, trotting; a stallion rearing up on its hind legs; and more. Captions supplement an impressive panorama of the world's best-loved and most highly prized animals.
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Believe it or not, bees are one of the oldest species of domesticated animals. Archeologists have found evidence of beekeeping, or apiculture, in the Middle East dating back more than five thousand years. If you’ve ever tasted good clover honey, it’s not hard to understand why. But it’s not just for the honey that more than 125,000 people (and growing) in the United States, alone, keep hives. Anyone interested in nature can’t help but be fascinated by those buzzing yellow bundles of energy and the exotic world they inhabit, with all its weird rituals and incredible efficiency. Also, dedicated gardeners appreciate the extra bounty that pollinating bees bring to their fruits, flowers, and vegetable gardens.In this easy-to-follow guide, Howland Blackiston, one of the nation’s most respected authorities on the subject, takes the mystery (and the sting) out of beekeeping. Taking a step-by-step approach to successful backyard beekeeping, he gets you up and running with all the information you need to:
- Build a hive
- Establish your first colony
- Inspect your hives with confidence
- Maintain healthy colonies
- Deal with pests and fix common problems
- Harvest and enjoy fresh homemade honey
- Bottle and market your honey
Howland Blackiston covers all the bases, from bee anatomy, society, and behavior, to identifying and healing common illnesses afflicting bees. He also offers inventive solutions to most common and many uncommon problems you’re likely to run into. Among other things, you’ll discover:
- Where to put your hive, basic equipment you’ll need, and how to assemble a hive
- The best and safest way to inspect and enjoy your bees
- Year-round tasks a beekeeper must perform to maintain a healthy colony
- How to recognize and deal with common problems with brood production and the precious queen
- How to harvest honey and decide what kind of honey you’d like to make
- Making products from beeswax and propolis
For both fun and profit, beekeeping has become a booming enterprise. A real honey of a book, Beekeeping For Dummies gets you on the road to enjoying this ancient, highly-rewarding, and oh-so-tasty hobby.