Download or read book Peacocks Picathartes written by Rupert Watson and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peacocks & Picathartes is a celebration of the diversity of African birds, focusing on families that occur only in Africa as well as iconic families and species that, despite having close relatives in other parts of the world, seem to embody something of Africa. Watson’s anecdotal style captures vividly his encounters with prized species, such the secretive White-necked Picathartes and the elusive Congo Peacock. He conveys the sheer delight mousebirds take in ‘being what they are’, and reveals the surprise discovery in 1991 of a new partridge in Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains. Drawing on precolonial and current-day avian accounts, he offers his own insights based on a lifetime of personal observations in the wilds of Africa – recounting unforgettable expeditions, quirky bird behaviour, jittery taxonomy, moments of rare good luck – and much more. Both informative and entertaining, this book captures the essence of African birdlife, and will appeal to bird enthusiasts across the spectrum. Sales points: Delightful accounts of more than 40 bird families and species, filled with anecdotes and fascinating stories. Brilliant illustrations by a celebrated natural history artist; both informative and entertaining; excellent all-seasons gift for bird and nature enthusiasts.
Download or read book Peacocks and Picathartes written by Rupert Watson and published by . This book was released on 2020-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both informative and entertaining, Peacocks & Picathartes is a celebration of Africa's diverse birdlife and examines not only the continent's endemic bird families, but also those birds that, despite being more widespread, are quintessentially African. Watson's anecdotal style vividly captures his encounters with prized species, such as the secretive White-necked Picathartes and the elusive Congo Peacock. His enthusiasm extends from the common to the extraordinary: he conveys the sheer delight mousebirds take in 'being what they are' - and reveals the surprise discovery in 1991 of a new partridge in Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountains. Drawing on precolonial and current-day avian accounts, he offers his own insights based on a lifetime of personal observations in the wilds of Africa, recounting unforgettable expeditions, quirky bird behavior, shifting taxonomy, moments of rare good luck - and much more.
Download or read book Living with Peacocks written by David Moyle and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2006 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This little book provides delightful, down-to-earth insights into what it's like to actually live with one of the grandest, most beautiful animals on our planet, the peacock. It gives loads of tips on what to feed these birds, sheltering tips, and whether or not to let them roam freely about your property or keep them in a pen. The author will give you lots of useful information about what to expect should you decide to bring home your own birds. The author relays his own personal experiences from many years of living with and raising peacocks. He shares his observations about what the famous peacock calls mean, how they get along with other animals and with people. He gives you hints about to build effective pens. He also gives you the down sides of co-existing with peacocks so you can make an informed decision about whether it really makes sense for you to bring them into your life. Knowing about the potential problems you could encounter, you aren't blinded by the beauty of these creatures in making a decision you may later regret.
Download or read book Africa s Wild Dogs written by Jocelin Kagan and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are roughly 6,600 wild dogs left in Africa yet they have cast such a spell on top wildlife photographer and naturalist Jocelin Kagan that she is determined to help save them. If left to their own devices, they are more than capable of thriving, as this sumptuous photographic natural history shows. Jocelin has called in world experts to add their latest findings about these resourceful, graceful and highly skilled family groups. Nomadic predators whose territories range thousands of kilometres, they hunt co-operatively, preying on small herbivores. Non-confrontational, they form complex bonds as this book reveals. Now restricted to small populations and threatened by some shoot-to-kill policies, habitat fragmentation, diseases from domestic dogs, climate change and snares, as well as natural predation from hyenas and lions, Africa's wild dogs will be supported by all the royalties from this book.
Download or read book Bird Nests and Construction Behaviour written by Mike Hansell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-31 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bird Nests and Construction Behaviour provides a broad view of our understanding of the biology of the nests, bowers and tools made by birds. It illustrates how, among vertebrates, the building abilities of birds are more impressive and consistent than for any other builders other than ourselves, yet birds seem to require no special equipment, and use quite uncomplicated behaviour. In doing so, the book raises general issues in the field of behavioural ecology including the costs of reproduction, sexual selection and the organisation and complexity of behaviour. Written for students and researchers of animal behaviour, behavioural ecology and ornithology, it will nevertheless make fascinating reading for architects and engineers interested in understanding how structures are created by animals.
Download or read book Livingston and the Explorations of Central Africa written by Harry Johnston and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pocket Guide to Wildflowers of South Africa written by Braam van Wyk and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pocket Guide: Wild Flowers of South Africa covers some 260 flowers representing all of the region’s major vegetation types: Accounts are conveniently organised by flower colour. Key ID features are supplied for each flower, as well as interesting facts. A photograph and distribution map accompany each species. Includes common and conspicuous plants as well as some alien species that are naturalized in the region. This book showcases some of the region’s diverse, strikingly beautiful floral splendours.
Download or read book 1990 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals written by World Conservation Monitoring Centre and published by IUCN. This book was released on 1990 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guest essay. Inventory report form. Documents on which the IUCN red list is based. Taxonomy. IUCN threat category definitions. List of abbreviations. Threatened species list. Mammals. Birds. Reptiles. Amphibians. Fishes. Invertebrates (non insects). Insects. Index.
Download or read book The Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammals written by Jonathan Kingdon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential mammal guide to take on safari, covering every African land mammal. Originally published in 2004, the Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammals quickly became the field guide of choice to take on African safaris. Its compact format makes it ideal for use in the field, while its coverage is the most comprehensive currently possible in this format. Adapted from the Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals, the greatly condensed text focuses on essential information such as identification and distribution, while the author's superb illustrations have been rearranged into an easy-to-use plate format and placed opposite the text. Complex and more obscure groups like the bats and certain rodent families are summarised by genera. Over 500 maps plot the distribution of all larger species, and for smaller mammals the maps show distribution by genus. This is a completely revised second edition of this popular guide. The information and taxonomy have been updated to follow the newly published second edition of the Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals (2015), and this new edition of the pocket guide contains several new species and illustrations. The maps have been completely replaced and there are now 200 more maps than in the original edition.
Download or read book David Livingstone written by Harry Johnston and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Livingston and the Explorations of Central Africa written by Harry Johnston and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The African Baobab written by Rupert Watson and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2014-02-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The baobab is surely the botanical symbol of Africa, instantly recognizable from afar and a compelling icon of the African landscape. This age-old ‘upside-down tree’ invariably inspires wonder, awe and mystery, and has intrigued travellers for hundreds of years. In this absorbing and inspired account of The African Baobab, author Rupert Watson explores the life and times of this fascinating tree, from its early Madagascan beginnings to its present status on the continent and its future in a changing Africa. He effortlessly mixes natural science, history and personal experience, drawing on extracts from the journals of early explorers who, on encountering these extraordinary trees, measured and sketched them for a sceptical audience back home; and he presents intriguing, detailed accounts of the baobab’s eccentric growth and reproductive habits, its present-day distribution, and its wide impact on everyday African life. The author takes a close look at the myriad uses of baobabs over the ages: their hollow centres have served as prisons, toilets, wells and bars, and some specimens have even been used as a refuge in battle or as burial sites. Their fibre, seeds and fruit are credited with hundreds of applications, both practical and medicinal. Many locals feel a spiritual connection to these trees – believing them to possess mystical powers – and use them in rituals to promote healing or luck. Other relationships between humans and the baobab are explored too, often illustrated by delightful anecdotes. The rich and enthusiastic text is complemented by evocative, colourful images that show the curious baobab in all its many stages, moods and guises – and sometimes in the most unlikely places. This book cannot fail to inspire.
Download or read book Remarkable Birds written by Stephen Moss and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebration of the world's favourite birds, as nominated by birders and conservationists worldwide
Download or read book A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles written by James Augustus Henry Murray and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 1088 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Paleopathology Disease in the Fossil Record written by Bruce M. Rothschild and published by Springer. This book was released on 1993 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Geographical Distribution of Animals written by Alfred Russel Wallace and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wallace, together with Darwin was the founder of modern evolutionary theory, and when Darwin received Wallace's paper of 1858 (a year before the publication of the Origin of Species), he wrote to Lyell "All my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed"."I never saw a more striking coincidence.Your words (referring to Lyell's earlier warnings that Darwin might be anticipated) have come true with a vengeance." In 1858 Wallace was already preparing an announcement of an importent zoogeographical discovery, which proposed a boundary line dividing the archipelago of Indo-Malayan and Australian zoological regions. The culmination of Wallace's approach was achieved in his monumental two-volume "The geographical Distribution." and it is a pioneer-work in zoogeography."--Abebooks website.
Download or read book Where Song Began written by Tim Low and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries. From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.
