The village of Mark on the Somerset Levels is a watery wonderl&, rich in wildlife: rooks & roe deer; sparrows & snowdrops; buzzards, badgers & butterflies; the iconic brown hare & the spectacular hummingbird hawk-moth. As the year unfolds, Stephen Moss witnesses the landscape as it passes from deep snow to spring blossom, through the heat haze of summer to the chill winds of autumn; from the first hazel catkins to the swallows returning from Africa; from the sounds of the dawn chorus to the nocturnal mysteries of moths. ” Wild Hares & Hummingbirds” is both the story of a small corner of the West Country & a celebration of the natural world. ...

Naturalist & author Stephen Moss lives in one of the longest villages in England
- Mark, on the Somerset Levels. This watery wonderland
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Tropical deforestation. The collapse of fisheries. Unprecedented levels of species extinction. Faced with the plethora of gloom-&-doom headlines about the natural world, we might think that environmental disaster is inevitable. But is there any good news about the environment? Yes, there is, answers Andrew Balmford in ” Wild Hope”, & he offers several powerful stories of successful conservation to prove it. This tragedy is still avoidable, & there are many reasons for hope if we find inspiration in stories of effective environmental recovery. ” Wild Hope” is organized geographically, with each chapter taking readers to extraordinary places to meet conservation`s heroes & foot soldiers
- & to discover the new ideas they are generating about how to make conservation work on our hungry & crowded planet. The journey starts in the floodplains of Assam, where dedicated rangers & exceptionally tolerant villagers have together helped bring Indian rhinos back from the brink of extinction. In the pine forests of the Carolinas, we learn why plantation owners came to resent rare woodpeckers
- & what persuaded them to change their minds. In South Africa, Balmford investigates how invading alien plants have been drinking the country dry, & how the Southern Hemisphere`s biggest conservation program is now simultaneously restoring the rivers, saving species, & creating tens of thousands of jobs. The conservation problems Balmford encounters are as diverse as the people & their actions, but together they offer common themes & specific lessons on how to win the battle of conservation
- & the one essential ingredient, Balmford shows, is most definitely hope. ” Wild Hope” is a clear-eyed view of the difficulties & challenges of conservation, offering innovative solutions & powerful stories. A global tour of people & programs working for the planet, ” Wild Hope” is an emboldening green journey.


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Wild Hope takes readers to extraordinary places to meet conservation`s heroes & foot soldiers
- & to discover the new ideas they
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Man started taming horses about 5000 years ago. At the time the familiar modern type had not yet developed: it is the result of millennia of human involvement. Of the few original variants of the original species, a descendant still survives: a population of about 1500 horses live wild, free & untamed on the Dzungarian steppes of deep Central Asia. This Mongolian horse is the only true subspecies of wild horse remaining on Earth: others, more or less lucky survivors that we meet in Asia, in South America & in North America, are masterless or undomesticated horses of modern stock living in the wild. Nonetheless, both populations are symbols of freedom, universal testimonials of the pleasure of running wild; they are exhilarating beauty of unharnessed movement. A small band of dedicated, specialist photographers have for many years tracked wild horses in the farthest reaches of the world, observing & photographing them. They have taken pictures of great beauty that portray horses of the unbound prairies, grazing, galloping, clashing & mating, driven by instinct & unrestrained by the hand of man. This book is a tribute to humankind's most valued friend, free at last to be the wonderful
- & even occasionally wild
- creature that millions of years of evolution have created.

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Long renowned for its wild places & remarkably rich natural history, India remains one of the world's greatest wildlife destinations. The sheer range of landscapes & habitats make this an unrivalled place to seek out animals as exciting as the tiger, elephant & leopard, as well as a host of other, less well-known species. From the ice caps of the Himalaya to the lush rainforests of the south, the varied landscapes are home to a great diversity of wildlife. However, population pressures are intense & India's rapid rate of modernisation is prompting a range of pressing conservation concerns. The different types of landscape, & the flora & fauna they support, are all examined in this revised & updated new edition, alongside conservation issues. Text originally written by the late Guy Mountfort has been expanded & updated by current experts on Indian landscape, wildlife & environmental protection. Illustrated with over 200 spectacular colour photographs, this book is a celebration of India's natural heritage. ...

As befits any true scion of the Irish literary tradition, Brendan Lehane spins a good yarn. ` Places to stay are plentiful but distant, ` he writes of the Sperrin Mountains
- a distinct improvement on the 1930s when the naturalist Robert Praeger & a colleague `had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window, in the only cottage with rooms to hire. In the morning hens were roosting on their toes`. He has plenty of other tales, drawn from folklore & fact, & an abiding love of the unchanged Irish countryside which informs every paragraph of this witty & readable book. Wild places still exist in abundance in Irel&. As he nicely points out, you can climb a mountain, bathe in the sea, watch thousands of birds co-existing on off-shore stacks, fish for salmon with a good chance of catching one & hear the dusk calls of the corncrake at a river`s mouth all in a day. Wild Ireland offers something different from the general run of guide-books. It takes you far beyond Dublin & the other popular tourist destinations such as Cork, Galway & County Kerry, spiriting you away to the remotest sea cliffs, secret valleys & mountain lakes, in Northern Ireland as well as the Republic. If you want to be an armchair traveller, Wild Ireland will entertain & entrance you for hours with word pictures & colour photographs. If you like the sound of a place, look in the accompanying fact-pack & you will find everything you need to plan a journey, arrange a fishing holiday, fix up accommodation or work out the stages for a long-distance walk. Specially drawn maps will enable you to find all the author`s favourite spots. In this edition the fact-packs have been packed with more facts than ever: more telephone & fax numbers, more contact names & more outdoor activities together with e-mail & web-site addresses, in short everything necessary to bring this popular & successful guide-book fully up to date.
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This is a book for anyone interested in wildlife, for art lovers, for tourists wanting a memento of their holiday, for everyone who loves the west coast of Scotl&. It depicts a year in the life of Oronsay, a remote island that is farmed by the RSPB for the benefit of wildlife, & follows artist Jane Smith, as she attempts to portray the interactions of wildlife, farm animals & human inhabitants. A humorous, first-h&, personal view of island life, both human & otherwise, & is illustrated with Jane Smith`s vibrant & acutely observed sketches, paintings & prints. Themes include: The trials of a wildlife artist
- what does it feel like to sit in a bog all day? What is screen printing? Where are a bird`s knees? Why does Jane always get covered in acrylic paint? Natural history
- from otters to oil beetles, this book is full of wild encounters. Conservation management
- sounds boring? Think of it more as `how to grow a peregrine`. Once you start to understand the intricate connections & links involved, it becomes like a fascinating 3D puzzle. Getting to the island
- the interplay of tides, wind, ferries & a str&-crossing mean that travelling to Oronsay is never dull. West coast living
- the ridiculous things that happen when living on a remote isl&, cut off from the rest of the world.




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Geography with the gritty bits left in! Does geography grind you down? Fed up with miserable maps, rotten rock piles & crazy contour lines? Wave goodbye to boring geography lessons as you are cast away on the far-flung shores of Wild Islands... Marvel! as a br&-new island pops up from the sea. Gasp! at the hot-tempered island that blew its top. Choke! on the smell of an island dragon's foul breath. & if that's not wild enough for you.. .discover where to find coconuts with magical powers, try to crack the case of the missing island & read the remarkable story of a real-life Robinson Crusoe. It's earth-shatteringly exciting! Geography has never been so horrible! ...

Fly out to far-away shores in Wild Islands. Discover where in the world you can watch an island blow its top, see a br&-new island rising from the sea & smell an island dragon`s foul breath. With a br&-new cover design, format & inside look for 2016, it`s geography with even more gritty bits left in! ...