Birds at their Best - Birds and Man - Daws in the West Country - Early Spring in Savernake Forest - A Wood Wren at Wells - Secret of the Charm of Flowers - Ravens in Somerset - Owls in a Village - The Strange and Beautiful Sheldrake - Geese: An Appeciation and a Memory - The Dartford Warbler - Vert-Vert Or Perrot Gossip - Something Pretty in a Glass Case - Selborne

Secrets of an Ageless Journey (1997) the journey begins once again when a sixteen year old girl, Sarah, ventures into the mysteries surrounding her grandfather and the family ancestral ranch. While visiting her cousins on the ranch she discovers an old journal written over eighty years before. The journal becomes the focus of her quest for discovering a mysterious influence that is about the family; and in some way guiding her. (1915) the journal takes Sarah back to one summer in the life of her great grandfather, Joseph, and his twin sister, Ida Belle as they experience a similar ancestral stirring in their lives. A great grandmother comes to visit the twins, involving them in a mystery that has haunted her and the clan. It is through the grandmother that the premise of an invisible force and invisible world exist and was essential to the culture and heritage of an American Indian nation.

When American explorers crossed the Texas Panhandle, they dubbed it part of the ""Great American Desert."" A ""sea of grass,"" the llano appeared empty, flat, and barely habitable. Contemporary developments - cell phone towers, oil rigs, and wind turbines - have only added to this stereotype. Yet in this lyrical ecomemoir, Shelley Armitage charts a unique rediscovery of the largely unknown land, a journey at once deeply personal and far-reaching in its exploration of the connections between memory, spirit, and place. Armitage begins her narrative with the intention to walk the llano from her family farm thirty meandering miles along the Middle Alamosa Creek to the Canadian River. Along the way, she seeks the connection between her father and one of the area's first settlers, Ysabel Gurule, who built his dugout on the banks of the Canadian. Armitage, who grew up nearby in the small town of Vega, finds this act of walking inseparable from the act of listening and writing. ""What does the land say to us?"" she asks as she witnesses human alterations to the landscape - perhaps most catastrophic the continued drainage of the land's most precious resource, the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet the llano's wonders persist: dynamic mesas and canyons, vast flora and fauna, diverse wildlife, rich histories. Armitage recovers the voices of ancient, Native, and Hispano peoples, their stories interwoven with her own: her father's legacy, her mother's decline, a brother's love. The llano holds not only the beauty of ecological surprises but a renewed realization of kinship in a world ever changing. Reminiscent of the work of Terry Tempest Williams and John McPhee, Walking the Llano is both a celebration of an oft-overlooked region and a soaring testimony to the power of the landscape to draw us into greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.

It was the pathetic mews of a hungry mother cat, scrounging in a dumpster to feed her kittens that first caught Bob and Kathy Rude's attention. They found the hungry cat and several more hungry felines while helping out at the family restaurant one summer. The chance meeting between the hungry strays and two government computer programmers led to the creation of Rude Ranch Animal Rescue, one of the United States' hardest working No-Kill Animal Sanctuaries. Read on to meet these original Rude Cats and find what can go right and wrong when you try to help a few stray animals and inadvertently start an animal sanctuary.

Stretching along 156 miles of Florida's East Coast, the Indian River Lagoon contains the St. Lucie estuary, the Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River Lagoon, and the Indian River. Nineteen canals and five man-made inlets have dramatically reshaped the region in the past two centuries, challenging the most biologically diverse estuarine system in the United States. Indian River Lagoon traces the winding story of the waterway, showing how humans have altered the area to fit their needs and also how the lagoon has influenced the cultures along its shores. Now stuck in transition between a place of labor and a place of recreation, the lagoon has become a chief focus of public concern. This book provides a much-needed bigger picture as debates continue over how best to restore this natural resource.

From a life-long interest in nature, the author shares her love of nature and her understanding of the intricacies of the natural world through her observations of the plants and animals in three familiar settings. A formal training in Biology has given her a rare insight into the important vital processes that influence the actions and interactions of birds, mammals, insects, and plants as the seasons change. She tries in her own mind to come to grips with the predator- prey relationship and to explain to the reader the importance of this vital process that makes life on earth possible.Part one is especially rich in bird lore as she observes the birds at her feeder while watching her young children grow in their understanding and knowledge of the natural world surrounding their home in a small town in east central Wisconsin. The middle section takes place in the north woods where she spends time trying to blend into the wildness of the national forest setting at a rustic hunting cabin and observe birds and other wild animals without intruding on their lives. The last part contains selected observations at a small lake in the sand country near Shawano, Wisconsin. The book concludes with short anecdotes about nature originally printed in the 'Lake Flyer" the newsletter of the Winnebago Audobon Society.Written by one of the states leading naturalist, and environmentalist, this book is the rare culmination of years of observations and reflections going back to the 50s.

An 840-acre natural oasis in a concrete jungle, New York's Central Park home is a magnet for wildlife, including over 200 species of birds. This beautifully illustrated guide highlights over 140 familiar and unique species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes and butterflies, pond invertebrates and includes an park map featuring prominent wildlife-viewing areas. Laminated for durability, this lightweight, pocket-sized folding guide is an excellent source of portable information and ideal for field use by visitors and residents alike. Researched with the assistance of the Central Park Conservancy, a portion of the proceeds go to support the important work of this organization.

When Ralph Helfer, now one of Hollywood's top animal behaviorists, first began working, he was shocked by the cruelty that was accepted practice in the field. He firmly believed in "affection training" -- that love, not fear, should be the basis of any animal's development, even when dealing with the most dangerous of creatures. Then Zamba came into his life -- an adorable four-month-old lion cub that went on to prove Helfer's theories resoundingly correct.

Over the next eighteen years, Zamba would thrive and grow, and go on to star in numerous motion pictures and television shows -- all the while developing a deep and powerful bond of love and affection with the man who raised him. By turns astonishing, hilarious, and poignant, "Zamba" is not only the unforgettable story of the relationship that Helfer would come to consider one of the most important in his life but also that of the amazing career and adventures of the greatest lion in the world.