A History of Birdwatching in 100 Objects
A History of Birdwatching in 100 Objects

Author: David Callahan

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-08-14

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1408186659

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book looks at 100 items that have profoundly shaped how people watched, studied and engaged with the avian world. Each item contains around 500 words on a double-page spread and include an illustration of the object in question. The book includes the objects listed below as well as many more.The range of items is international and cross-cultural. Subjects include: *An Egyptian 'field guide' (early tomb decorations of birds, identifiable as species) *Ornithologiae libri tres: the first British bird guide (a 1676 publication that attempted to itemise all British birds known at the time) *The Dodo specimen held at the Horniman museum *Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus (the first-ever system of scientific names in 1758, and still the international standard today) *The shotgun *The book, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (1789) *HMS Beagle (the ship on which Darwin made his ground-breaking discoveries) *Aluminium bird rings (used to record movement and longevity of individuals and species) Along with many more modern innovations including walkie talkies, pagers, radio tags and apps.

When There Were Birds
When There Were Birds

Author: Roy Adkins

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Published: 2021-11-11

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 140871356X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A landmark book that charts humanity's changing relationship with birds - from the ancient Egyptians to the twenty-first century 'A marvellously original slice of social history' Daily Mail 'The facts and folklore of birdlife are dissected in admirable detail in this handsome book' Sunday Times 'Roy and Lesley Adkins are masters of their craft' BBC Countryfile Magazine No other group of animals has had such a complex and lengthy relationship with humankind as birds. They have been kept in cages as pets, taught to speak and displayed as trophies. More practically, they have been used to tell the time, predict the weather, foretell marriages, provide unlikely cures for ailments, convey messages and warn of poisonous gases. When There Were Birds is a social history of Britain that charts the complex connections between people and birds, set against a background of changes in the landscape and evolving tastes, beliefs and behaviours. It draws together many disparate, forgotten strands to present a story that is an intriguing and unexpectedly significant part of our heritage.

The Birds at My Table
The Birds at My Table

Author: Darryl Jones

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-03-15

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 150171080X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Darryl Jones is fascinated by bird feeders. Not the containers supplying food to our winged friends, but the people who fill the containers. Why do people do this? Jones asks in The Birds at My Table. Does the food even benefit the birds? What are the unintended consequences of providing additional food to our winged friends? Jones takes us on a wild flight through the history of bird feeding. He pinpoints the highs and lows of the practice. And he ponders this odd but seriously popular form of interaction between humans and wild animals. Most important, he points out that we know very little about the impact of feeding birds despite millions of people doing it every day. Unerringly, Jones digs at the deeper issues and questions, and he raises our awareness of the things we don’t yet know and why we really should. Using the latest scientific findings, The Birds at My Table takes a global swoop from 30,000 feet down to the backyard bird feeder and pushes our understanding of the many aspects of bird feeding back up to new heights.

Collecting Evolution
Collecting Evolution

Author: Matthew J. James

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0199354626

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In 1905, eight men from the California Academy of Sciences set sail from San Francisco for a scientific collection expedition in the Galapagos Islands, and by the time they were finished in 1906, they had completed one of the most important expeditions in the history of both evolutionary and conservation science. These scientists collected over 78,000 specimens during their time on the islands, validating the work of Charles Darwin and laying the groundwork for foundational evolution texts like Darwin's Finches. Despite its significance, almost nothing has been written on this voyage, lost amongst discussion of Darwin's trip on the Beagle and the writing of David Lack. In Collecting Evolution, author Matthew James finally tells the story of the 1905 Galapagos expedition. James follows these eight young men aboard the Academy to the Galapagos and back, and reveals the reasons behind the groundbreaking success they had. A current Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, James uses his access to unpublished writings and photographs to provide unprecedented insight into the expedition. We learn the voyagers' personal stories, and how, for all the scientific progress that was made, just as much intense personal drama unfolded on the trip. This book shares a watershed moment in scientific history, crossed with a maritime adventure. There are four tangential suicides and controversies over credit and fame. Collecting Evolution also explores the personal lives and scientific context that preceded this voyage, including what brought Darwin to the Galapagos on the Beagle voyage seventy years earlier. James discusses how these men thought of themselves as "collectors" before they thought of themselves as scientists, and the implications this had on their approach and their results. In the end, the voyage of the Academy proved to be crucial in the development of evolutionary science as we know it. It is the longest expedition in Galapagos history, and played a critical role in cementing Darwin's legacy. Collecting Evolution brings this extraordinary story of eight scientists and their journey to life.

Lively Cities
Lively Cities

Author: Maan Barua

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2023-05-16

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1452969663

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A journey through unexplored spaces that foreground new ways of inhabiting the urban One of the fundamental dimensions of urbanization is its radical transformation of nature. Today domestic animals make up more than twice the biomass of people on the planet, and cities are replete with nonhuman life. Yet current accounts of the urban remain resolutely anthropocentric. Lively Cities departs from conventions of urban studies to argue that cities are lived achievements forged by a multitude of entities, drawing attention to a suite of beings—human and nonhuman—that make up the material politics of city making. From macaques and cattle in Delhi to the invasive parakeet colonies in London, Maan Barua examines the rhythms, paths, and agency of nonhumans across the city. He reconceptualizes several key themes in urban thought, including infrastructure, the built environment, design, habitation, and everyday practices of dwelling and provides a critical intervention in animal and urban studies. Generating fresh conversations between posthumanism, postcolonialism, and political economy, Barua reveals how human and nonhuman actors shape, integrate, subsume, and relate to urban space in fascinating ways. Through novel combinations of ethnography and ethology, and focusing on interlocutors that are not the usual suspects animating urban theory, Barua’s work considers nonhuman lifeworlds and the differences they make in understanding urbanicity. Lively Cities is an agenda-setting intervention, ultimately proposing a new grammar of urban life.

Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?
Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?

Author: Nige Tassell

Publisher: Nine Eight Books

Published: 2022-08-18

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1788705599

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'You will love this book.' - RICHARD OSMAN Shortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize A Rough Trade Book of the Year A Resident Book of the Year A Monorail Book of the Year A Virgin Radio Book of the Year In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which 'indie' was born. But what happened next to all those musical dreamers? Some of the bands, like Primal Scream, went on to achieve global stardom; others, such as Half Man Half Biscuit and The Wedding Present, cultivated lifelong fanbases that still sustain their careers today. Then there were the rest - the ones who endured general indifference from the record-buying public and ultimately returned to civvy street. Now, thirty-five years on, journalist Nige Tassell tracks down the class of C86, unearthing members of all twenty-two bands and sharing the stories, both tragic and uplifting, of these long-lost musicians. Told with warmth, compassion and humour, this is a very human account of ambition, hope, varying degrees of talent and what happens after you give up on music - or, more accurately, after music gives up on you. It's a world populated by bike-shop owners, dance-music producers, record-store proprietors, ornithologists, driving instructors, solicitors, caricaturists and possibly even an Olympic sailor. And let's not forget the musician-turned-actor gainfully employed as Jeremy Irons' body double... More than simply the tale of the tape, Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? is an exploration of C86's wide-reaching and often surprising legacy.

A Bird in the Bush
A Bird in the Bush

Author: Stephen Moss

Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA

Published: 2013-07-25

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1781310092

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This journey through the world of birdwatchers is “a wonderful book. . . . fascinating, often hilarious anecdotes and information” (Daily Mail, Critic’s Choice). Scholarly, authoritative, and above all supremely readable, Stephen Moss’s book is the first to trace the fascinating history of how and why people have watched birds for pleasure, from the beginnings with Gilbert White in the eighteenth century through World War II POWs watching birds from inside their prison camp and all the way to today’s “twitchers” with their bleeping pagers, driving hundreds of miles for a rare bird. “Proves that birdwatchers can be as instructive to watch as birds.” —Sunday Times “Thoroughly researched and well-written.” —The Guardian “Moss knows his subject intimately and writes about it with just the right mixture of affection and occasional quizzicality.” —Sunday Telegraph “It would be difficult to imagine anyone producing a more comprehensive, thoughtful, intelligent and entertaining examination of how people have watched birds at each point in history. In fact, it is one of the few books which might prove such compulsive reading that even a dedicated twitcher might forgo a day in the field to stay at home to finish it.” —Birding World

Of a Feather
Of a Feather

Author: Scott Weidensaul

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0156035189

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beyond Audubon: A quirky, “lively and illuminating” account of bird-watching’s history, including “rivalries, controversies, [and] bad behavior” (The Washington Post Book World). From the moment Europeans arrived in North America, they were awestruck by a continent awash with birds—great flocks of wild pigeons, prairies teeming with grouse, woodlands alive with brilliantly colored songbirds. Of a Feather traces the colorful origins of American birding: the frontier ornithologists who collected eggs between border skirmishes; the society matrons who organized the first effective conservation movement; and the luminaries with checkered pasts, such as Alexander Wilson (a convicted blackmailer) and the endlessly self-mythologizing John James Audubon. Naturalist Scott Weidensaul also recounts the explosive growth of modern birding that began when an awkward schoolteacher named Roger Tory Peterson published A Field Guide to the Birds in 1934. Today, birding counts iPod-wearing teens and obsessive “listers” among its tens of millions of participants, making what was once an eccentric hobby into something so completely mainstream it’s now (almost) cool. This compulsively readable popular history will surely find a roost on every birder’s shelf. “Weidensaul is a charming guide. . . . You don’t have to be a birder to enjoy this look at one of today’s fastest-growing (and increasingly competitive) hobbies.” —The Arizona Republic

To See Every Bird on Earth
To See Every Bird on Earth

Author: Dan Koeppel

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2006-04-25

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1440627037

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What drives a man to travel to sixty countries and spend a fortune to count birds? And what if that man is your father? Richard Koeppel’s obsession began at age twelve, in Queens, New York, when he first spotted a Brown Thrasher, and jotted the sighting in a notebook. Several decades, one failed marriage, and two sons later, he set out to see every bird on earth, becoming a member of a subculture of competitive bird watchers worldwide all pursuing the same goal. Over twenty-five years, he collected over seven thousand species, becoming one of about ten people ever to do so. To See Every Bird on Earth explores the thrill of this chase, a crusade at the expense of all else—for the sake of making a check in a notebook. A riveting glimpse into a fascinating subculture, the book traces the love, loss, and reconnection between a father and son, and explains why birds are so critical to the human search for our place in the world. “Marvelous. I loved just about everything about this book.”—Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman “A lovingly told story . . . helps you understand what moves humans to seek escape in seemingly strange other worlds.”—Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak “Everyone has his or her addiction, and birdwatching is the drug of choice for the father of author Dan Koeppel, who writes affectionately but honestly about his father’s obsession.”—Audubon Magazine (editor’s choice) “As a glimpse into human behavior and family relationships, To See Every Bird on Earth is a rarity: a book about birding that nonbirders will find just as rewarding.”—Chicago Tribune

Birds and Us
Birds and Us

Author: Tim Birkhead

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2022-03-03

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0241990149

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Award-winning writer and ornithologist Tim Birkhead takes us on an epic and dazzling journey through this mutual history with birds. Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art and philosophy, from the ibises mummified by Ancient Egyptians and Renaissance experiments on the woodpecker to the Victorian obsessions with egg collecting and our present fight to save endangered species. Weaving in stories from his own life as a scientist, this rich and fascinating book is the culmination of a lifetime's research and unforgettably shows how birds shaped us, and how we have shaped them. 'Thought-provoking at every turn, this inspiring, shocking, wonder-filled exploration of our relationship with birds' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'A fascinating book about the close and often surprising relationship between birds and people' Stephen Moss