This book looks at the penguins - an enduringly popular and fascinating group of birds. Penguins are assosciated in the public consciousness with the icecap of the south pole, and we are all familiar with images of male Emperor Penguins clustered together through the long night of the Antartic winter as they incubate the single egg on their feet. However, several species occur in warmer regions further north, in southern Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand and even the Galapagos. All are flightless but are beautifully adapted swimmers and divers, and many are able to travel at high speeds on dry land by means of spectacular leaps and belly-slides. social behaviour. This book looks at all aspects of penguin evolution, biology, ecoloy and sociobiology, as well as conservation issues affecting the group. It is illustrated with line drawings and black and white photographs, and has a full-colour photographic section.

Amazing as it might sound, ornithologists are still discovering an average of five or six bird species each year that are completely new to science. These aren't all obscure brown birds on tiny islands - witness the bizarre Bare-faced Bulbul from Laos (2009), spectacular Araripe Manakin from Brazil (1998), or gaudy Bugun Liocichla from north-east India (2006). Birds New to Science documents over half a century of these remarkable discoveries, covering round 300 species. Each account includes the story of discovery, a brief description of the bird (many with accompanying photographs), and details of what is known about its biology, range and conservation status. Written in an engaging style, this is a rich reference to an incredible era of adventure in ornithology.

An illustrated flight across the Southeast Birdlife invites readers into the lives of birds we often meet in the southeastern United States. Writer, scientist, and illustrator Todd Ballantine presents the habits and habitats, colorings, migratory paths, and songs of nearly one hundred birds of the Southeast that he has come to know so well. He wings us across diverse landscapes, along the coasts of states from Virginia to Texas, and in elds and forests in between, providing keen insights and tips for recognizing birds on the branch, on the beach, or in the air. Along the coast and estuaries, you will meet the double-crested cormorant and the herring gull; near marshes and wetlands, the American coot and the great blue heron; in elds and open areas, the killdeer and the savannah sparrow. In the brush and at the wood's edge, you will encounter the dark-eyed junco and the white-eyed vireo, and in the forest-if you are lucky-you might hear the evocative call of the nocturnal Chuckwill's-widow. Birdlife delights with Ballantine's own artistic and precise illustrations, hand-lettered text, easy-to-follow presentations, and memorable descriptions. His black-and-white bird renderings provide easy identi cation of shape and form. A unique book to enjoy in nature's habitats, high and low, Birdlife is a must-have companion for birding enthusiasts and anyone intrigued by the lives of birds.

* The first photographic field guide for the birds of Cuba * Includes all 378 recorded species * Updated status and distribution taxonomy Cuba is home to a diverse avifauna, rich with endemic species. The island is also home to a range of regional scarcities and acts as an important stopping point for migrants as they cross the Caribbean. This comprehensive photographic guide provides full coverage of every species on the Cuban list. The images have been carefully selected to show key features, while the concise text is designed to aid field identification, providing essential information on aging and sexing, voice, similar species, habitat, and behavior. Each species account includes a map showing distribution on the island and is accompanied by notes on world range and status in Cuba. Packed with spectacular images, this book is the definitive guide to the avifauna of Cuba and an essential companion for any bird-watcher or naturalist visiting this beautiful and bird-rich island.

With heart-shaped face, buff back and wings, and pure white underparts, the barn owl is a distinctive and much-loved bird which has fascinated people from many cultures throughout history. How did the barn owl colonise the world? What adaptations have made this bird so successful? How is the increasing impact of human disturbance affecting these animals? Answering these questions and more, Roulin brings together the main global perspectives on the evolution, ecology and behaviour of the barn owl and its relatives, discussing topics such as the high reproductive potential, physiology, social and family interaction, pronounced colour variation and global distribution. Accessible and beautifully illustrated, this definitive volume on the barn owl is for researchers, professionals and graduate students in ornithology, animal behaviour, ecology, conservation biology and evolutionary biology, and will also appeal to amateur ornithologists and nature lovers.

Vocal signals are central for social communication across a wide range of vertebrate species; consequently, it is critical to understand the mechanisms underlying the learning, control, and evolution of vocal communication. Songbirds are at the forefront of research into such neural mechanisms. Indeed, songbirds provide a particularly important model system for this endeavor because of the many parallels between birdsong and human speech. Specifically, (1) songbirds are one of the few vertebrate species that, like humans, learn their vocal signals during development, (2) the processes of song learning and control in songbirds shares many parallels with the process of speech acquisition in humans, and (3) there exist deep homologies between the circuits for the learning, control, and processing of vocal signals across songbirds and humans. In addition, because of the diversity of songbirds and song learning strategies, songbirds offer a powerful model system to use the comparative method to reveal mechanisms underlying the evolution of song learning and production. Taken together, research on songbirds can not only reveal general principles underlying vertebrate vocal communication but can also provide insight into potential mechanisms underlying the learning, control, and processing of speech. This volume will cover a range of topics in birdsong spanning multiple level of analysis. Chapters will be authored by the world's leading experts on birdsong and will provide comprehensive reviews of the processes underlying song learning, of the neural circuits for song learning and control as well as for the extraction and processing of song information, of the selection pressures underlying song evolution, and of genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the learning and evolution of song. The primary goals of this volume are to provide comprehensive, integrative, and comparative perspectives on birdsong and to underscore the importance of birdsong to biomedical research, evolutionary biology, and behavioral, systems, and computational neuroscience.The target audience of this volume will be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established academics and neuroscientists who are interested in mechanisms of communication from an integrative and comparative perspective. The volume is intended to function as a high-profile and contemporary reference on current work related to the learning, control, processing, and evolution of birdsong. This volume will have broad appeal to comparative and sensory biologists, neurophysiologists, and behavioral, systems, and cognitive neuroscientists who attend meetings such as the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Neuroethology, and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Because of the relevance of birdsong research to understanding human speech, it is likely that the volume will also be of interest to speech researchers and clinicians researching communication, motor, and sensory processing disorders.

This revised edition will continue to serve as the most complete and up-to-date guide to the use of the avian embryo in studies of vertebrate development. It will include new approaches to analysis of the chick genome, gene knock-out studies using RNA interference, morpholinos, and other cutting edge techniques. As with the original edition, emphasis has been placed on providing practical guidance, highlighting potentials and pitfalls of all key cell biological and embryological techniques.
* Fully revised second edition, organized into basic and advanced methods.
* New chapters with modern techniques only in use in the past decade, with an emphasis placed on providing practical guidance - highlighting potentials and pitfalls.
* International team of contributors with broad expertise in using the avian embryo to study vertebrate development.
* Includes new approaches including analysis of the chick genome, gene knock-out studies using RNAi, morpholinos, and other cutting edge techniques.

The Netherlands Antilles comprises three main islands off the coast of northern Venezuela. These are Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire . They are major tourist destinations, especially popular with divers, and also attract many visitors from Holland and elsewhere. The colour plates are based on the bestselling Birds of Northern South America, but many new images have been painted specially for this book. The authoritative text highlights the key features needed to identify each species in the field, and the plates illustrate every distinct plumage and race. This will be the first ever comprehensive field guide dedicated to the birds of the region.

In Birds, devout birder and ornithologist Roger J. Lederer celebrates the heyday of avian illustration in 40 artists' profiles, beginning with the work of Flemish painter Frans Snyders in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Buttersworth, famed for her portraits of macaws. Stretching its wings across time, taxa, geography, and artistic style - from the celebrated realism of American conservation icon John James Audubon, to Elizabeth Gould's nineteenth-century renderings of museum specimens from the Himalayas, to Swedish artist and ornithologist Lars Jonsson's ethereal watercolours - this book is a cornucopia of art and artists as diverse and beautiful as their subjects.

David Hancock has been fascinated by the magnificent bald eagle for over 50 years. This title conveys the enthusiasm, depth of knowledge and respect for nature that could only come from a writer who has dedicated his life to wildlife biology and conservation. Personal anecdotes -- such as the author's often humorous adventures as a young graduate student travelling the west coast to study eagles -- enliven the narrative. Chapters on the biology of the bald eagle and a summary of how they bounced back from the edge of extinction in the continental US share David Hancock's extensive understanding and appreciation of this majestic bird. As well, there is a look at some of the best eagle viewing areas and festivals on the northwest coast with recommendations and observations from the author.

The definitive guide to the birds of Bhutan, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh The nation of Bhutan and the Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh together form the eastern arm of the Himalayas. This book is the definitive field guide to the birds of this magical corner of Asia. This field guide covers all 809 species that regularly occur in the region, including most vagrants. There are 152 superb colour illustrations, with concise text on facing pages for quick and easy reference covering essential identification information such as voice, habits, habitats, distribution and status. The introduction further includes information on popular birding sites and conservation.

The voices of birds have always been a source of fascination. Nature's Music brings together some of the world's experts on birdsong, to review the advances that have taken place in our understanding of how and why birds sing, what their songs and calls mean, and how they have evolved. All contributors have strived to speak, not only to fellow experts, but also to the general reader. The result is a book of readable science, richly illustrated with recordings and pictures of the sounds of birds.
Bird song is much more than just one behaviour of a single, particular group of organisms. It is a model for the study of a wide variety of animal behaviour systems, ecological, evolutionary and neurobiological. Bird song sits at the intersection of breeding, social and cognitive behaviour and ecology. As such interest in this book will extend far beyond the purely ornithological - to behavioural ecologists psychologists and neurobiologists of all kinds.
* The scoop on local dialects in birdsong
* How birdsongs are used for fighting and flirting
* The writers are all international authorities on their subject

More than one hundred species of kingfishers are found distributed around the world - every continent but Antarctica. All share oversized heads, dagger bills, and short flicking tails. Many have dazzling rainbow feathers. They range in size from the diminutive pygmy kingfisher of African rainforests to the kookaburra of Australia. Here, Marina Richie takes as her inspiration the belted kingfisher, found all over North America but not as well-known as other common birds. In this first book on belted kingfishers, Richie plunges headfirst - just like a kingfisher would - into their lives, following them from her backyard to archives around the world. On a small stretch of Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, Montana, Richie spent hundreds of hours seeking and observing a skittish pair of nesting belted kingfishers. Weaving natural history, mythology, and memoir, Richie celebrates the belted kingfisher through a journey of discovery across multiple seasons. She discusses the scientific literature on kingfishers, the role of citizen scientists, the appearance of kingfishers in religions and cultures from ancient Greece to the Salish tribes, and her own observations: the staccato calls, the sharp dives, the scenes of females chasing after each other. Her quest taught her not just about kingfishers but also about stillness and the world around her. Spending long hours still on the creek bank, she reflects on the challenges and narratives of wildlife, of environmental change, and of her own life: the death of her father, himself a bird lover; balancing her passion for kingfishers with marriage, motherhood, and paid work; and finally a decision to leave Montana for a different life in Oregon.

Ornithology, 4th Edition is a comprehensive introductory text covering a wide scope of topics essential for understanding the field of ornithology. This edition infuses the most current research and a more conceptual approach alongside an evolutionary perspective. The 4th edition retains its hallmark readability, as well as a well updated narrative and bibliography with the latest scientific content and references.

A guide to birdwatching sites in Portugal and offshore islands: this book shows you where to go and when to visit for the best birding experience. This guide is best used alongside your field guide - it does not include information about identifying birds. Portuguese territory goes well beyond Portugal itself; it also comprises the Atlantic archipelagos of Azores and Madeira. Considered in this light, it is a highly diverse area in ornithological terms, holding endemic bird taxa, large populations of seabirds, most of the rarest and sought-after species of southern Europe and many exciting Nearctic vagrants. Add to these prospects the natural hospitality of the Portuguese people, the mild climate, the modern infrastructure plus the excellent food and wine and it is easy to see why the country is one of the most attractive destinations in Europe for the birdwatcher. This book is a reprint (without changes) of the Prion Birdwatchers' Guide to Portugal, the Azores & Madeira Archipelagos (2nd Edition, 2014, ISBN: 9781871104134). It is a key reference for anyone - from beginner to ornithologist - planning to visit the area with an interest in its birds. This is a site guide, not an identification guide.

Two species come to mind when one thinks of the Galapagos Islands--the giant tortoises and Darwin's fabled finches. While not as immediately captivating as the tortoises, these little brown songbirds and their beaks have become one of the most familiar and charismatic research systems in biology, providing generations of natural historians and scientists a lens through which to view the evolutionary process and its role in morphological differentiation.
In "Darwin's Finches," Kathleen Donohue excerpts and collects the most illuminating and scientifically significant writings on the finches of the Galapagos to teach the fundamental principles of evolutionary theory and to provide a historical record of scientific debate. Beginning with fragments of Darwin's Galapagos field notes and subsequent correspondence, and moving through the writings of such famed field biologists as David Lack and Peter and Rosemary Grant, the collection demonstrates how scientific processes have changed over time, how different branches of biology relate to one another, and how they all relate to evolution. As Donohue notes, practicing science today is like entering a conversation that has been in progress for a long, long time. Her book provides the history of that conversation and an invitation to join in. Students of both evolutionary biology and history of science will appreciate this compilation of historical and contemporary readings and will especially value Donohue's enlightening commentary.

Human animals are despoiling nature and causing a sixth extinction on Earth. Our natural environment is being compromised, and birds and other animals are disappearing at an alarming rate. Flight from Grace does not so much reveal the extent of the damage as ask and answer the perplexing question: why? This book traces human reverence for birds from the Stone Age and the New Stone Age, through the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Peru, and Greece and through biblical traditions, up to its vestiges in the present. Richard Pope takes a hard look at Judaeo-Christian and ancient Greek thought to demonstrate how the emergence of anthropocentrism and belittling of nature led to our present-day ecological dilemma. Striking images of cultural artifacts -- many little-known -- together with extensive discussion of art, music, literature, and religion illustrate the paradox in our contemporary relationship to the natural world. Humanity, in moving from its paleolithic origins to modern times, has simultaneously distanced itself from and disenchanted nature. Suggesting that the replacement of an animistic worldview with a mechanistic one has led humans to deny their animality, Flight from Grace calls on readers to appreciate how our past relationship with birds might help transform our current relationship with nature.

In this book there are entire chapters devoted to the most widely used bird counting techniques, and attempts to amalgamate other counting methodologies into major groups were made. Examples of the use of methods are provided wherever possible and the relative value of various approaches for answering specific questions is also addressed.
Key Features
* A newly revised edition of the immensely successful Bird Census Techniques
* An entirely new chapter covering the census methods recommended for tropical habitats
* Provides a concise guide to various census techniques and their opportunities and pitfalls

This book meets the demand for a comprehensive introduction to understanding the processes of population limitation. Recognized world-wide as a respected biologist and communicator, Dr. Ian Newton has now written a clear and detailed treatise on local scale population limiting factors in birds. It is based almost entirely on results from field studies, though it is set in a contemporary theoretical framework. The 16 chapters fall under three major section headings: Behavior and Density Regulation; Natural Limiting Factors; and Human Impacts. Population Limitation in Birds serves as a needed resource expanding on Dr. David Lacks research in this area of ornithology in the 1950s. It includes numerous line diagrams and beautiful illustrations by acclaimed wildlife artist Keith Brockie.
Key Features
* Provides a sorely needed introduction to a long-established core subject in ornithology
* Focuses on local scale factors
* Written by a well-known biologist and effective communicator
* Includes numerous line diagrams and beautiful illustrations by acclaimed wildlife artist Keith Brockie

In Book of Birds: Introduction to Ornithology, John Faaborg, renowned expert on avian ecology and conservation, brings a fresh and accessible sensibility to the study of ornithology. In this beautifully illustrated volume, Faaborg's approachable writing style will engage students and birders alike while introducing them to the study of the evolution, taxonomy, anatomy, physiology, diversity, and behavior of birds. With its unique focus on ecology, the text emphasizes birds' relationships with the environment and other species while showing the amazing diversity of avian life. Faaborg pays special attention to the roles that competition, community structure, and reproductive behavior play in the astonishingly varied and interesting lives of birds seen around the world. He discusses variations in anatomy, morphology, and behavior; explains why such vast diversity exists; and explores the ways in which different birds can share the same spaces. Artist Claire Faaborg brings the science behind this diversity to life through her unique, hand-drawn artwork throughout the book. Combining vibrant visuals and knowledgeable insights, Book of Birds offers readers a firm foundation in the field of ornithology and an invaluable resource for understanding birds from an ecological and evolutionary perspective.

This comprehensive volume covers the natural history of each of over 160 members of the ducks, geese, swans and screamers of the world. Beautifully illustrated and authoritative, this remarkable book is destined to become the ultimate reference work on the waterfowl of the world. The eighteen chapters deal with every aspect of waterfowl biology, including habitat, distribution, plumage, migration, feeding, courtship, predators and mortality. A separate appendix includes weights of virtually every species and subspecies of waterfowl. Concise full-colour range maps accompany each species account. More than 750 beautifully reproduced photographs represent a lifetime of intensive research and field study by the author. This definitive volume on the Anseriformes will prove invaluable to anyone interested in the natural history of the waterfowl -- weather teacher, student, naturalist, bird watcher, conservationist, aviculturist or ornithologist.

Australia is home to a spectacular diversity of birdlife, from parrots and penguins to emus and vibrant passerines. "Birds of Australia" covers all 714 species of resident birds and regularly occurring migrants and features more than 1,100 stunning color photographs, including many photos of subspecies and plumage variations never before seen in a field guide. Detailed facing-page species accounts describe key identification features such as size, plumage, distribution, behavior, and voice. This one-of-a-kind guide also provides extensive habitat descriptions with a large number of accompanying photos. The text relies on the very latest IOC taxonomy and the distribution maps incorporate the most current mapping data, making this the most up-to-date guide to Australian birds.Covers all 714 species of resident birds and regularly occurring migrantsFeatures more than 1,100 stunning color photosIncludes facing-page species accounts, habitat descriptions, and distribution mapsThe ideal photographic guide for beginners and seasoned birders alike