Download or read book Pigeon on the Wing written by Tim Burton and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOBODY IS BORN A WARRIOR. YOU CHOOSE TO BE ONE WHEN YOU REFUSE TO STAY SEATED. YOU CHOOSE TO BE ONE WHEN YOU REFUSE TO BACK DOWN. YOU CHOOSE TO BE ONE WHEN YOU STAND UP AFTER GETTING KNOCKED DOWN. YOU CHOOSE TO BE ONE BECAUSE IF NOT YOU, WHO? Review by Dr. George Whale BSc (Hons), MA, PhD: Even in an age that criminalises much of free speech, Tim Burton's account of his trial and incarceration for offending an over-sensitive Muslim from the higher echelons of the British Establishment is both shocking and disturbing. From being led down to the dungeons beneath the Inner London Crown Court, to survival in jail and eventual release - what's amazing about this story is that it's filled with gentle humour, satire, mockery and delicious British irony. Tim Burton intersperses the recollections of his gruelling journey through the British (in) justice system with reflections on the nature of Political Islam. He explores the dire threat that it poses to everything that we in the West hold dear - and especially our freedom of speech. Pigeon on the Wing is truly a book of our time, about a principled man who stood up for what he believed was right and was cynically punished for it. It is funny, surprising, dark - but ultimately uplifting. This book is essential reading for everyone who cares about freedom. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Tim Burton Legal Defence Fund - with the goal of overturning an unjust conviction and seeking the re-classification of a political ideology that should never have been classified as a 'religion' to start with.
Download or read book The New York Pigeon written by Andrew Garn and published by powerHouse Books. This book was released on 2024-06-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans have always bred, farmed, raced, and lived alongside pigeons. Some of us shoo them away and others care for them as the city’s most famous wildlife. The New York Pigeon, now in its second edition with spectacular new images, is a one-of-a-kind, intimate study of this worldwide neighbor. The New York Pigeon reveals the unexpected beauty of the omnipresent pigeon as if Vogue devoted its pages to birds, not fashion models. In spite of pigeons’ ubiquity in New York and other cities, we never really see them closely and know very little about their function in the urban ecosystem. This book brings to light the intriguing history, behavior, and splendor of a bird so often overlooked. While The New York Pigeon is primarily a photography book, it also tells the five-thousand-year story of the feral pigeon. Why are pigeons so successful in cities and not in the countryside? Why do they have such diverse plumage? How have pigeons adapted to survive on almost any food? Why are pigeons able to fly up to 500 miles per day but rarely do? How did Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner teach pigeons to do complicated tasks, from tracking missile targets to recognizing individual human faces? Why can pigeons see in the ultraviolet light spectrum, and why is half of their brain used for visual perception? The second edition of The New York Pigeon, with its fresh portraiture and new essay from Catherine Quayle of the Wild Bird Fund, presents dramatic, hyper-real studio portraits capturing the personalities, expressiveness, glorious feather iridescence, and deeply hued eyes of the New York pigeon.
Download or read book A World on the Wing The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds written by Scott Weidensaul and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year An exhilarating exploration of the science and wonder of global bird migration. In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we’ve learned of these key migrations—how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis—is nothing short of extraordinary. Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela—the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest—avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth’s magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides—and their reaction time actually improves. These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges. Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.
Download or read book How to Heal a Broken Wing written by Bob Graham and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Such a visual piece . . . readers young and old will return to the story to look more deeply; they won’t be disappointed.” — Booklist (starred review) In a city full of hurried people, only young Will notices the bird lying hurt on the ground. With the help of his sympathetic mother, he gently wraps the injured bird and takes it home. Wistful and uplifting in true Bob Graham fashion, here is a tale of possibility — and of the souls who never doubt its power.
Download or read book Animals in Flight written by Robin Page and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2005-05-30 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wings carry tiny insects, fluttering butterflies, and backyard birds, and they even once propelled some dinosaurs up and through the skies. Find out how, when, and why birds and beasts have taken to the air, and discover how wings work in this informative and brilliantly illustrated book about flight.
Download or read book A Feathered River Across the Sky written by Joel Greenberg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beautifully written cautionary tale reveals how passenger pigeons have become extinct and how no series effort was made to protect this species that inspired awe in the likes of John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau and James Fenimore Cooper until it was too late.
Download or read book The Passenger Pigeon written by Errol Fuller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting, beautifully illustrated memorial to this iconic extinct bird At the start of the nineteenth century, Passenger Pigeons were perhaps the most abundant birds on the planet, numbering literally in the billions. The flocks were so large and so dense that they blackened the skies, even blotting out the sun for days at a stretch. Yet by the end of the century, the most common bird in North America had vanished from the wild. In 1914, the last known representative of her species, Martha, died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo. This stunningly illustrated book tells the astonishing story of North America's Passenger Pigeon, a bird species that—like the Tyrannosaur, the Mammoth, and the Dodo—has become one of the great icons of extinction. Errol Fuller describes how these fast, agile, and handsomely plumaged birds were immortalized by the ornithologist and painter John James Audubon, and captured the imagination of writers such as James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. He shows how widespread deforestation, the demand for cheap and plentiful pigeon meat, and the indiscriminate killing of Passenger Pigeons for sport led to their catastrophic decline. Fuller provides an evocative memorial to a bird species that was once so important to the ecology of North America, and reminds us of just how fragile the natural world can be. Published in the centennial year of Martha’s death, The Passenger Pigeon features rare archival images as well as haunting photos of live birds.
Download or read book Dave Pigeon Racer written by Swapna Haddow and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER of the Greenhouse Funny Prize; SHORTLISTED for the Sainsbury's Book Award and numerous regional awards, this hilarious series is adored by its readers! Have you ever sat in a shoebox? Of course you have. But have you ever sat in one when your best friend Dave has spread his feathery self out so wide that his cheesy feet are right up your beak and an old banana is taking up the rest of the space? I didn't think so. This is where our story begins . . . Dave Pigeon and his best friend Skipper are travelling in a box to Pawsville Vets . . . maybe Dave will finally get his broken wing fixed. The pet shop is full of new friends . . . Jet the dog, Cricket Ball Face the hamster . . . and with friendship comes a bit of healthy competition, and what could be better than a race for a racing pigeon? But the only animal who thinks Dave is capable of going up against the infamous Mickey Lightning is Dave himself. The third instalment to this laugh-out-loud new series is fully illustrated throughout by the incredible Sheena Dempsey. 'A hilarious new series.' Angels and Urchins 'A really enjoyable read for children just moving into chapter books.' Books for Keeps 'Readers will love this action packed story about friendship, bravery and the lengths a pigeon will go to to secure themselves a crumbly treat.' Reading Zone 'I can't imagine any child not loving Dave and waiting excitedly for his next adventure.' Serendipity Reviews 'Readers will love it as it is full of daring and bravery, and much backfiring of ridiculous schemes and much crossing out.' The School Librarian
Download or read book Vesper Flights written by Helen Macdonald and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this “dazzling” essay collection (Wall Street Journal). In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.
Download or read book A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching written by Rosemary Mosco and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun. Fact: Pigeons are amazing, and until recently, humans adored them. We’ve kept them as pets, held pigeon beauty contests, raced them, used them to carry messages over battlefields, harvested their poop to fertilize our crops—and cooked them in gourmet dishes. Now, with The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, readers can rediscover the wonder. Equal parts illustrated field guide and quirky history, it covers behavior: Why they coo; how they flock; how they preen, kiss, and mate (monogamously); and how they raise their young (on chunky pigeon milk). Anatomy and identification, from Birmingham Roller to the American Giant Runt to the Scandaroon. Birder issues, like what to do if you find a baby pigeon stranded in the park. And our lively shared story together, including all the things we’ve taught them—Ping-Pong, for example. “Rats with wings?” Think again. Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain. So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist (and co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid) is here to give the pigeon's image a makeover, and to help every town- and city-dweller get closer to nature by discovering the joys of birding through pigeon-watching.
Download or read book Unnatural Selection written by Katrina van Grouw and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lavishly illustrated look at how evolution plays out in selective breeding Unnatural Selection is a stunningly illustrated book about selective breeding--the ongoing transformation of animals at the hand of man. More important, it's a book about selective breeding on a far, far grander scale—a scale that encompasses all life on Earth. We'd call it evolution. A unique fusion of art, science, and history, this book celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's monumental work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, and is intended as a tribute to what Darwin might have achieved had he possessed that elusive missing piece to the evolutionary puzzle—the knowledge of how individual traits are passed from one generation to the next. With the benefit of a century and a half of hindsight, Katrina van Grouw explains evolution by building on the analogy that Darwin himself used—comparing the selective breeding process with natural selection in the wild, and, like Darwin, featuring a multitude of fascinating examples. This is more than just a book about pets and livestock, however. The revelation of Unnatural Selection is that identical traits can occur in all animals, wild and domesticated, and both are governed by the same evolutionary principles. As van Grouw shows, animals are plastic things, constantly changing. In wild animals the changes are usually too slow to see—species appear to stay the same. When it comes to domesticated animals, however, change happens fast, making them the perfect model of evolution in action. Suitable for the lay reader and student, as well as the more seasoned biologist, and featuring more than four hundred breathtaking illustrations of living animals, skeletons, and historical specimens, Unnatural Selection will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in natural history and the history of evolutionary thinking.
Download or read book Flight of the Diamond Smugglers A Tale of Pigeons Obsession and Greed Along Coastal South Africa written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Unforgettable. . . . An outstanding adventure in its lyrical, utterly compelling, and heartbreaking investigations of the world of diamond smuggling.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air. Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proportions. From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth, through the “halfway” desert, to Kleinzee’s shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town. Interwoven throughout this obsessive quest are epic legends in which pigeons and diamonds intersect, such as that of Krishna’s famed diamond Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, and that of the Cherokee serpent Uktena. In these strange connections, where truth forever tangles with the lore of centuries past, Frank is able to contextualize the personal grief that sent him, with his wife Louisa in the passenger seat, on this enlightening journey across parched lands. Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a rare and remarkable portrait of exploitation and greed in one of the most dangerous areas of coastal South Africa. With his sovereign prose and insatiable curiosity, Matthew Gavin Frank “reminds us that the world is a place of wonder if only we look” (Toby Muse).
Download or read book Pigeon and Pigeonette written by Dirk Derom and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An old, blind pigeon and a young, deformed pigeon become friends as they persevere in their quest to fly.
Download or read book Homing written by Jon Day and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 'Rich and joyous ...The book's quiet optimism about our ability to change, and to learn to love small things passionately, will stay with me for a long time' Helen Macdonald 'Big-hearted and quietly gripping' Guardian 'I love Jon Day's writing and his birds. A marvellous, soaring account' Olivia Laing '[A] beautiful book about unbeautiful birds' Observer 'This is nature writing at its best' Financial Times 'Awash with historical and literary detail, and moving moments ... Wonderful' Telegraph 'Every page of this beautifully written book brought me pleasure' Charlotte Higgins 'A vivid evocation of a remarkable species and a rich working-class tradition. It's also a charming defence of a much-maligned bird, which will make any reader look at our cooing, waddling, junk-food-loving feathered friends very differently in future' Daily Mail 'Endlessly interesting and dazzlingly erudite, this wonderful book will make a home for itself in your heart' Prospect As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it meant to feel at home. Returning to his childhood obsession with the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed. Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin. A book about the overlooked beauty of this species, and about what it means to dwell, Homing delves into the curious world of pigeon fancying, explores the scientific mysteries of animal homing, and traces the cultural, political and philosophical meanings of home. It is a book about the making of home and making for home: a book about why we return.
Download or read book Dave Pigeon written by Swapna Haddow and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER of the Greenhouse Funny Prize; SHORTLISTED for the Sainsbury's Book Award and numerous regional awards, this hilarious series is adored by its readers!If you can read this, you obviously understand Pigeonese. You may read my book.If you're a cat and you've learnt Pigeonese . . . (HA HA HA! As if a cat would be smart enough to learn Pigeonese). This must mean if you are a cat and you are able to read this, you have taken a pigeon hostage so that you can trick them into translating the Pigeonese words into Meow. I demand you release the hostage pigeon now. My book contains TOP SECRET ideas that are NONE of a cat's business.Dave Pigeon is writing a book on how he defeated Mean Cat in order to help fellow pigeons everywhere. Cats beware! A hilarious debut for 6+ readers with black and white illustrations by the superbly talented Sheena Dempsey.'A hilarious new series.' Angels and Urchins'A really enjoyable read for children just moving into chapter books.' Books for Keeps'Readers will love this action packed story about friendship, bravery and the lengths a pigeon will go to to secure themselves a crumbly treat.' Reading Zone'I can't imagine any child not loving Dave and waiting excitedly for his next adventure.' Serendipity Reviews'Readers will love it as it is full of daring and bravery, and much backfiring of ridiculous schemes and much crossing out.' The School Librarian
Download or read book Pigeon Health written by Colin Walker and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taking More Birds written by Dan Carlisle and published by Lyons Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complex art of wing shooting and an analysis of the skills needed for accuracy.
