An ornithological quiz book packed with challenging questions for birders, based on the popular ` Bird Brain of Britain` contest at the annual Bird Fair. The British Birdwatching Fair, held every August at Rutland Water Nature Reserve, attracts over 30, 000 visitors every year. One of the most popular attractions in the events marquee is the ` Bird Brain of Britain` contest. Each of the four contestants must answer a set of questions on their nominated specialist subject, & a second set on general (ornithological) knowledge. The participants have included popular presenters & experts throughout the years, including Stephen Moss, Chris Harbard, Mark Andrews, Nigel Redman, Mike Dilger & David Lindo, among many others. The book will feature the questions asked in the contest over its 30-year lifespan. Many seemingly simple questions turn out to have complex answers, & some that seem difficult have a very simple explanation. The questions are difficult & varied enough to test any birder`s knowledge, & will provide many hours of challenging entertainment. Be they trivial, idiosyncratic, baffling or strange, the varied bird trivia included makes this compilation as entertaining & enlightening as it is educational. ...

Annie Proulx, one of America`s finest writers, invites us to share her experience in the building of her new home on a rich plot of untouched, unspoilt prairie & her pleasure in uncovering of the layers of American history locked beneath the topsoil. ` Bird Cloud` is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands & prairie & 400 foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer & a dozen antelope. She knew she had to purchase the l&, then owned by the Nature Conservancy, & she knew what she would build on it
- a house in harmony with her work, her appetites & her character
- a library surrounded by bedrooms & a kitchen. Proulx`s first non-fiction in more than twenty years, Bird Cloud is the story of building that house
- solar panels, a Japanese soak tub, a concrete floor, elk horn handles on kitchen cabinets
- & an enthralling natural history & archeology of the region, inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho & Shoshone Indians. It is also a family history, going back to nineteenth century Mississippi river boat captains & Canadian settlers, & an illuminating autobiography. Proulx, a writer with extraordinary powers of observation & compassion, turns her lens on herself. We understand how she came to be living in a house surrounded by wilderness, with shelves for thousands of books & long worktables on which to heap manuscripts, research materials & maps, & how she came to be one of the great American writers of her time.



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I want to find out how they behave when they`re free. Len Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life & loves behind, retire to the English countryside & devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds. Moving to a small cottage in Sussex, she wrote two bestselling books, astonishing the world with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows & other birds that lived nearby, flew freely in & out of her windows, & would even perch on her shoulder as she typed. This moving novel imagines the story of this remarkable woman`s decision to defy society`s expectations, & the joy she drew from her extraordinary relationship with the natural world. ...

Following on from its hugely successful launch in 1999, Collins Bird Guide
- the ultimate reference book for bird enthusiasts
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Following on from its hugely successful launch in 1999, Collins Bird Guide
- the ultimate reference book for bird enthusiasts
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In a unique collaboration between the British Trust for Ornithology, Nature Photographers Ltd & William Collins, this beautiful book accompanies a new photographic competition celebrating some of the best bird photography of the year. Bird Photographer of the Year celebrates the artistry of bird photography, & this large-format book will be lavishly illustrated to reflect this. A celebration of avian beauty & diversity, it is a tribute to both the dedication & passion of the photographers as well as a reflection of the quality of today`s modern digital imaging systems. The book will include the winning & short-listed images from the competition, showcasing some of the finest bird photography, with a foreword by BTO President & head judge, Chris Packham. A proportion of the profits from the book will go directly to the BTO to support their conservation work. The advent of digital technology has revolutionised photography in recent years, & the book will bring to life some of the most stunning bird photography currently on offer. It will feature a vast variety of photographs by hardened pros, keen amateurs & hobbyists alike, reflecting the huge diversity of bird enthusiasts & nature lovers which is so important in ensuring their conservation & survival. ...

Foreword by Chris Packham This beautiful book accompanies the photographic competition celebrating some of the best bird photography of the year. The Bird Photographer of the Year competition celebrates the artistry of bird photography, & this large-format book is lavishly illustrated to reflect this. A celebration of avian beauty & diversity, it is a tribute to both the dedication & passion of the photographers as well as a reflection of the quality of today`s modern digital imaging systems. The book

Includes:: the winning & short-listed images from the competition, now in its second year, showcasing some of the finest bird photography, with a foreword by BTO President & head judge, Chris Packham. A proportion of the profits from the book goes directly to the BTO to support their conservation work. The advent of digital technology has revolutionised photography in recent years, & the book brings to life some of the most stunning bird photography currently on offer. It features a vast variety of photographs by hardened pros, keen amateurs & hobbyists alike, reflecting the huge diversity of bird enthusiasts & nature lovers which is so important in ensuring their conservation & survival.

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Foreword by Chris Packham This beautiful book accompanies the photographic competition celebrating some of the best bird photography of the year. The Bird Photographer of the Year competition celebrates the artistry of bird photography, & this large-format book is lavishly illustrated to reflect this. A celebration of avian beauty & diversity, it is a tribute to both the dedication & passion of the photographers as well as a reflection of the quality of today`s modern digital imaging systems. The book

Includes:: the winning & short-listed images from the competition, now in its third year, showcasing some of the finest bird photography, with a foreword by BTO President & head judge, Chris Packham. A proportion of the profits from the book goes directly to the BTO to support their conservation work. The advent of digital technology has revolutionised photography in recent years, & the book brings to life some of the most stunning bird photography currently on offer. It features a vast variety of photographs by hardened pros, keen amateurs & hobbyists alike, reflecting the huge diversity of bird enthusiasts & nature lovers which is so important in ensuring their conservation & survival.

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Containing 21 postcards of striking birds from all around the world, colourfully illustrated by Christine Berrie. Spot penguins & puffins, sparrows & blue tits, as well as learning about weird & wonderful exotic birds such as the splendid fairywren through the fascinating facts included on the cards. Send a robin with Christmas tidings, a laughing kookaburra to share a joke or a northern cardinal with songs of springtime. These beautiful birds will take flight with your messages to reach absent friends in all corners of the globe. ...

What is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? & what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, & how does its brain improvise? Bird Sense addresses questions like these & many more, by describing the senses of birds that enable them to interpret their environment & to interact with each other. Our affinity for birds is often said to be the result of shared senses
- vision & hearing
- but how exactly do their senses compare with our own? & what about a birds` sense of taste, or smell, or touch or the ability to detect the earth`s magnetic field? Or the extraordinary ability of desert birds to detect rain hundreds of kilometres away
- how do they do it? Bird Sense is based on a conviction that we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird`s head. Our understanding of bird behaviour is simultaneously informed & constrained by the way we watch & study them. By drawing attention to the way these frameworks both facilitate & inhibit discovery, it identifies ways we can escape from them to seek new horizons in bird behaviour. There has never been a popular book about the senses of birds. No one has previously looked at how birds interpret the world or the way the behaviour of birds is shaped by their senses. A lifetime spent studying birds has provided Tim Birkhead with a wealth of observation & an understanding of birds & their behaviour that is firmly grounded in science.


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