Australia's white cockatoos have fascinated the world over for over 200 years, and their popularity is evidenced by the frequency with which you encounter them in Australia's backyards as pets. However, it has often been said that familiarity breeds contempt. It is unfortunate that their proper care, both as pets and in aviculture, has long been neglected. If aviculturists truly wish to argue that they keep birds because they love them, this situation must be remedied.
Alexis Wright’s award-winning classic Carpentaria: “a swelling, heaving tsunami of a novel—stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humor, sweetened by spiraling lyricism” (The Australian) Carpentaria is an epic of the Gulf country of northwestern Queensland, Australia. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centers on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob, on the one hand, and with the white officials of Uptown and the nearby rapacious, ecologically disastrous Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright’s masterful novel teems with extraordinary characters—the outcast savior Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers of the family, the queen of the garbage dump and the fish-embalming king of time: Angel Day and Normal Phantom—who stand like giants in a storm-swept world. Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. She has a narrative gift for remaking reality itself, altering along her way, as if casually, the perception of what a novel can do with the inside of the reader's mind. Carpentaria is “an epic, exhilarating, unsettling novel” (Wall Street Journal) that is not to be missed.
The authors in this book deal with the Black cockatoo species and subspecies of the genus Calptorhynchus, the Palm Cockatoo and the Gang Gang Cockatoo. This book seeks to cater for the pet bird owner and the novice and experienced aviculturist.
This book was first written in Latin in 1241 by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Holy Roman Emperor (1196-1250). It was first published as a two volume work by his son Manfred. The original is in the Vatican. Next it was published in French in 1300 in six volumes by Jean II of Dampierre. The six volume work was translated into English and combined into one book in 1931 by Dr. Casey Albert Wood (1856-1942), a Canadian ophthalmologist specializing in the eyes of birds, and F. Marjorie Fyfe. The illustrations in this book were obtained in the Vatican Library during the years that Dr. Wood was studying there. Falcons have the best eyesight of any creature known to exist. It has long been recognized that birds of this type have exceptional ability in eyesight. We even have the expression "Eagle-eyed," meaning a person who is alert and can see well. Second is that they are the fastest creature known to exist. Consider the fact that Falcons fly high in the sky, thousands of feet up, yet they can spot a mouse on the ground and dive down to catch him. Dr. Casey Wood was studying falcons to find out why they are able to see so much better than we humans can. One of the very few rare copies of this book known to exist are in the Vatican Library in Vatican City, where he was studying.
Beginners and experienced birdwatchers turn to this guide to identify the birds they see in their backyards and on bushwalking or birdwatching expeditions. Designed to slip easily into a pocket, backpack or glove box. This is a new and updated version of the very popular Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds and includes 64 new or extensively revised colour plates, incorporating all the new birds observed in Australia, including Tasmania and islands and territories since 1986. Also included is a re-organisation of the guide into broad habitats - seabirds, shore birds, inland water birds and bush birds; updated common and scientific names, revised maps, and a new visual index to aid beginners in finding the most appropriate pages in the guide. A must for serious naturalists in Australia, be they beginners or experts.
This reference book on the cockatoo family provides a comprehensive physical description of the various species of this exotic parrot, the habitat they favor, and their distribution and behaviors both in the wild and in captivity. Their reproductive history is examined, as is the possibility of breeding sufficient numbers in captivity to develop sustainable populations for re-introduction to their original habitat should they become extinct in the wild. The book explores the historical encounters of the various species with Europeans two centuries ago. That early history provides considerable insight to the cockatoo's popularity and to efforts to breed them in captivity. Many cockatoo species face a perilous future. As their native forests are logged, the cockatoos lose not only suitable nesting and roosting sites, but native foods. Additionally, despite conservation laws governing the capture of wild cockatoos, their desirability as an avian pet has spawned a worldwide illicit trade critically endangering some species to the point that they face extinction in the wild.
