This book is a totally fresh approach to observing birds in southern Africa. It affords you the opportunity to gather previously inaccessible and indecipherable information in the form of tracks and signs left behind by our avifauna. The book explores the unique details of the spoor, or tracks, of many species of birds. This is done in multiple ways including by observing their droppings, examining their feeding behaviour as well as their general nesting structures.

It’s remarkable how tracks and signs in nature help you to enrich your knowledge of bird species, providing knowledge as straightforward as the shape of the individual nests of our various species of weaver, or the ability to recognise and understand the role of a drum-site in the life of a bearded woodpecker, or even being able to see the subtle signs of a cardinal woodpecker on the various acacia pods which host its larval food.

Louis Liebenberg has generously provided some sketches of spoor he has made for his own publications, making these clear schematics available to assist with identification. Skulls, feathers, beaks and egg shells are also occasionally encountered, and a few examples of these will be included, as they also tell a story of a bird which has passed by. This approach to southern Africa’s birdlife will add tremendously to how we experience our wonderful avifauna.

The relationship between humans and mountain lions has always been uneasy. A century ago, mountain lions were vilified as a threat to livestock and hunted to the verge of extinction. In recent years, this keystone predator has made a remarkable comeback with the help of enlightened wildlife management policies and protection under the Endangered Species Act. But its recovery has led to an unexpected conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they're a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or, are mountain lions still in need of our help and protection as their habitat dwindles and they're forced into the edges and crevices of communities to survive? Carnivore expert Mark Elbroch welcomes these tough questions. He dismisses long-held myths about mountain lions and uses ground-breaking science to uncover important new information about their social habits. Elbroch argues that humans and mountain lions can peacefully coexist in close proximity if we ignore uninformed hype and instead arm ourselves with knowledge and common sense. He walks us through the realities of human safety in the presence of mountain lions, livestock safety, competition with hunters for deer and elk, and threats to rare species, dispelling the paranoia with facts and logic. In the last few chapters, he touches on human impacts on mountain lions and the need for a sensible management strategy. The result, he argues, is a win-win for humans, mountain lions, and the ecosystems that depend on keystone predators to keep them in healthy balance. The Cougar Conundrum delivers a clear-eyed assessment of a modern wildlife challenge, offering practical advice for wildlife managers, conservationists, hunters, and those in the wildland-urban interface who share their habitat with large predators.

Comprehensive guide to the animals of North America Fully illustrated with drawings and photographs User-friendly format makes comparing species easy

This uniquely thorough reference and guidebook offers illustrations, descriptions, and measurements for the skulls of some 275 animal species found throughout North America. The skull--the collection of bones that house and protect a creature's brain and sensory organs--is the key anatomical feature used to identify an animal and understand many of its behaviors. This book describes in words and pictures the bones and regions of the skull important to identification, including illustrations of all the bones in the cranium, leading to a greater understanding of a creature's place in the natural world. Life-size drawings and detailed measurements make this guide an invaluable reference for wildlife professionals, trackers, and animal-lovers alike.

The Peterson Field Guide Series (R) Sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and the National Audubon Society
America's Best-Selling Field Guides
THE PETERSON IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM Roger Tory Peterson's unique identification system explains exactly what features to look for to tell one species from another.
EASE OF USE Peterson Field Guides are designed to work in the field, and every illustration, every word, is directed to that end.
THE AUTHORS AND ILLUSTRATORS In each Peterson Field Guide, an author with expertise in the subject and an experienced artist work closely with the editors to ensure that both text and illustrations are accurate.
A Field Guide to Animal Tracks, third edition This completely updated edition includes 100 color photographs of tracks and sign, more than 1,000 line drawings, and updated nomenclature for all the mammals of North America. The text includes descriptions of habits, habitats, tracks, signs, and ranges and is filled with wonderful natural history stories.
Olaus J. Murie was one of America's leading mammalogists. His extensive fieldwork ranged throughout the United States and Canada, from Labrador to the Aleutian Islands, with special concentration in the Northwest. For twenty-five years he was a field biologist with the U.S. Biological Survey, now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He also served as director of the Wilderness Society for many years. Murie lived in Moose, Wyoming. He was the author of The Elk of North America and many articles on natural history.
Mark Elbroch is the author of several tracking guides, including two award-winning books, Mammal Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American Species and, with Eleanor Marks, Bird Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American Species. He has contributed to numerous North American research projects, from monitoring bears to capturing cougars to inventorying carnivores in dry tropical forests. He is working with Cybertracker Conservation in South Africa to create the first North American evaluation for wildlife trackers. Elbroch currently works as a wildlife consultant, specializing in field inventories and identifying corridors, and teaches workshops on wildlife and tracking across North America.

The most comprehensive reference guide to mammal tracks and sign for North America. This new edition is more visual, with more than 1300 photos and 450 illustrations for easy comparison and identification of similar sign. Each species account includes information on tracks and trails, scat and urine, nests and lodges, as well as sign on the ground, in trees and shrubs, on fungi and on plants.

Spotting an animal's fresh footprints in the wild can conjure a world for the hiker: Why did the deer tracks disappear? Where did the cougar turn off the trail? What does it mean when two sets of footprints seem to coincide? This beautifully illustrated field guide, the first devoted to the tracks and signs of California animals - including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates like spiders and beetles - blends meticulous science with field experience to provide an engaging companion for both armchair exploration and easy field identification. Filled with useful tools for the wildlife expert, and essential background and visual aids for the novice, including in-depth information about the ecology of each species, this book goes beyond basic recognition of types to interpret what animals leave behind as a way of "seeing" how they move through the world.