"In this elegant narrative, celebrated naturalist Ted Floyd guides you through a year of becoming a better birder. Choosing 200 top avian species to teach key lessons, Floyd introduces a new, holistic approach to bird watching and shows how to use the tools of the 21st century to appreciate the natural world we inhabit together whether city, country or suburbs." -- From book jacket.
The second volume in the Buenaventura Series and the sequel to The Brujo’s Way, opens in December 1705 with a terrifying nightmare that fills Don Carlos Buenaventura, a powerful brujo in his sixth life, with dread. Feeling the need to strengthen his brujo powers, always weakened by town life, he rides out into the wild mountain landscapes around Santa Fe in order to practice his sorcerer’s technique of transforming himself into hawks and owls. Transformations are exhilarating, but they do not dispel his sense of an impending menace. In addition, as he tells his friend Inéz de Recalde, whom he has rescued from a difficult past and to whom he has declared his love, he is impatient to move forward in his quest for wisdom on what he calls the Unknown Way. Into this picture comes a trio of itinerant entertainers, a magician and two women dancers, who offer an ambiguous promise. Can they lead him to deeper realms of consciousness, or are they agents of his enemy, the evil sorcerer Don Malvolio? The magician and his alluring companions introduce Carlos to dances that transport him into ecstatic mind states, but he remains uncertain about what master they serve. Despite the risk of exposing his secret brujo identity and of being disloyal to Inéz, Carlos allows himself to be drawn ever farther into their web of dark and dangerous enchantments. Includes Readers Guide.
Without question, this is a classic by one of the most exciting new authors in the UFO field today. After reading it, your view of reality will never be the same.The owl has held a place of reverence and mystique throughout history. And as strange as this might seem, owls are also showing up in conjunction with the UFO experience.Mike Clelland has collected a wealth of first-hand accounts in which owls manifest in the highly charged moments that surround alien contact. There is a strangeness to these accounts that defy simple explanations. This book explores implications that go far beyond what more conservative researchers would dare consider.But the owl connection encompasses more than the UFO experience. It also includes profound synchronicities, ancient archetypes, dreams, shamanistic experiences, personal transformation, and death. From the mythic legends of our ancient past to the first-hand accounts of the UFO abductee, owls are playing some vital role.This is also a deeply personal story. It is an odyssey of self-discovery as the author grapples with his own owl and UFO encounters. What plays out is a story of transformation with the owl at the heart of this journey.
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 Longlisted for the National Book Award Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction A Finalist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award Winner of the Peace Corps Worldwide Special Book Award A Best Book of the Year: NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Globe and Mail, The BirdBooker Report, Geographical, Open Letter Review Best Nature Book of the Year: The Times (London) "A terrifically exciting account of [Slaght's] time in the Russian Far East studying Blakiston’s fish owls, huge, shaggy-feathered, yellow-eyed, and elusive birds that hunt fish by wading in icy water . . . Even on the hottest summer days this book will transport you.” —Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk, in Kirkus I saw my first Blakiston’s fish owl in the Russian province of Primorye, a coastal talon of land hooking south into the belly of Northeast Asia . . . No scientist had seen a Blakiston’s fish owl so far south in a hundred years . . . When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist. Despite a wingspan of six feet and a height of over two feet, the Blakiston’s fish owl is highly elusive. They are easiest to find in winter, when their tracks mark the snowy banks of the rivers where they feed. They are also endangered. And so, as Slaght and his devoted team set out to locate the owls, they aim to craft a conservation plan that helps ensure the species’ survival. This quest sends them on all-night monitoring missions in freezing tents, mad dashes across thawing rivers, and free-climbs up rotting trees to check nests for precious eggs. They use cutting-edge tracking technology and improvise ingenious traps. And all along, they must keep watch against a run-in with a bear or an Amur tiger. At the heart of Slaght’s story are the fish owls themselves: cunning hunters, devoted parents, singers of eerie duets, and survivors in a harsh and shrinking habitat. Through this rare glimpse into the everyday life of a field scientist and conservationist, Owls of the Eastern Ice testifies to the determination and creativity essential to scientific advancement and serves as a powerful reminder of the beauty, strength, and vulnerability of the natural world.
Chronicles the author's rescue of an abandoned barn owlet, from her efforts to resuscitate and raise the young owl through their nineteen years together, during which the author made key discoveries about owl behavior.
"With detailed information about identification, calls, habitat, breeding, nesting, and behavior, this reference guide has the most up-to-date information about natural history, taxonomy, biology, ecology, migration and conservation status."--Book jacket.
Provides general information on the behavior of owls and specific information about the physical characteristics and behavior of the twenty-one North American species.
Follows the efforts of a flock of chickens, ducks, and geese to discover the secret of their neighboring owls' happiness, which is credited to the beauty and wonder of the natural world.
