A quest for this quintessentially antipodean family of birds uncovers the tree of life and the landscapes of Australia and New Zealand. From the UK and a Singapore stopover, the traveller journeys to a week around Perth. Then two months in a campervan from Adelaide to Cairns, Queensland. He learns how the tree of life connects the whole globe. The route also skirts floods and cyclones. A fortnight in Tasmania and Victoria, with its fatal fires, concludes this far from straightforward quest for the 73 honeyeaters. Finally, New Zealand offers a coda with its own branch of the family. It's not just about birds: it's a last chance to witness other survivors from the Triassic as they struggle against the latest mass extinction. Railways, cities and culture shock also play cameo roles.
An enthralling exploration of the biologically richest island on Earth, featuring more than 200 spectacular color images by award-winning National Geographic photographer Tim Laman In this beautiful book, Bruce Beehler, a renowned author and expert on New Guinea, and award-winning National Geographic photographer Tim Laman take the reader on an unforgettable journey through the natural and cultural wonders of the world's grandest island. Skillfully combining a wealth of information, a descriptive and story-filled narrative, and more than 200 stunning color photographs, the book unlocks New Guinea's remarkable secrets like never before. Lying between the Equator and Australia's north coast, and surrounded by the richest coral reefs on Earth, New Guinea is the world's largest, highest, and most environmentally complex tropical island—home to rainforests with showy rhododendrons, strange and colorful orchids, tree-kangaroos, spiny anteaters, ingenious bowerbirds, and spectacular birds of paradise. New Guinea is also home to more than a thousand traditional human societies, each with its own language and lifestyle, and many of these tribes still live in isolated villages and serve as stewards of the rainforests they inhabit. Accessible and authoritative, New Guinea provides a comprehensive introduction to the island's environment, animals, plants, and traditional rainforest cultures. Individual chapters cover the island's history of exploration; geology; climate and weather; biogeography; plantlife; insects, spiders, and other invertebrates; freshwater fishes; snakes, lizards, and frogs; birdlife; mammals; paleontology; paleoanthropology; cultural and linguistic diversity; surrounding islands and reefs; the pristine forest of the Foja Mountains; village life; and future sustainability. Complete with informative illustrations and a large, detailed map, New Guinea offers an enchanting account of the island's unequalled natural and cultural treasures.
This is the third book in the series of comprehensive guidebooks to birdwatching destinations in Australia. Similarly to the other books in the series, the Victorian guide delivers a detailed record of birdwatching locations within the State. The authors toured from the Southern Ocean-swept shores to all corners of the dry interior to assess and select the best, reasonably accessible birding spots. Description of each birding site includes, at a minimum, habitat description, site facilities and key avifauna. The authors have cross-checked and supplemented their findings with the verified sightings reported online. Book 1: Australian Good Birding Guide: NSW-ACT Book 2: Australian Good Birding Guide: Tasmania
This is the fourth book in the series of comprehensive guidebooks to birdwatching destinations in Australia. The Southern and Central QLD guide describes the most interesting and reasonably accessible birding spots located in the southern half of the vast Queensland State. Description of each birding site includes, at a minimum, habitat description, site facilities and key avifauna. The authors have cross-checked and supplemented their findings with verified sightings reported online. www.australian-good-birding-guide.com Other books by Ted & Alex Wnorowski: Australian Good Birdwatching Guide: NSW-ACT Australian Good Birdwatching Guide: Tasmania Australian Good Birdwatching Guide: Victoria In preparation: Australian Good Birdwatching Guide: Northern Queensland.
Queensland is home to 70% of Australia's native mammals (226 species), over 70% of native birds (630 species), just over half of the nation's native reptiles (485) and native frogs (127), and more than 11,000 native plant species. Hundreds of these have a threatened status. In order for Queensland to maintain and recover a healthy biodiversity, Australians must address the serious problems faced by their natural environment - habitat loss, inappropriate land management, change in fire regimes, pollution of natural resources, proliferation of invasive species and climate change. This comprehensive and practical guide to Queensland's threatened animals features up-to-date distribution data, photos and maps for most of Queensland's threatened animals. KEY FEATURES * Includes up-to-date distribution data, photos and maps * Includes a comprehensive list of resources, with key state, national and international organizations involved in the recovery of threatened species * Complemented by an open access website that will be updated on a regular basis
Like a star chart this volume orientates the reader to the key issues and debates in Pacific and Australasian biogeography, palaeoecology and human ecology. A feature of this collection is the diversity of approaches ranging from interpretation of the biogeographic significance of plant and animal distributional patterns, pollen analysis from peats and lake sediments to discern Quaternary climate change, explanation of the patterns of faunal extinction events, the interplay of fire on landscape evolution, and models of the environmental consequences of human settlement patterns. The diversity of approaches, geographic scope and academic rigor are a fitting tribute to the enormous contributions of Geoff Hope. As made apparent in this volume, Hope pioneered multidisciplinary understanding of the history and impacts of human cultures in the Australia- Pacific region, arguably the globe's premier model systems for understanding the consequences of humans colonization on ecological systems. The distinguished scholars who have contributed to this volume also demonstrate Hope's enduring contribution as an inspirational research leader, collaborator and mentor. Terra Australis leave no doubt that history matters, not only for land management, but more importantly, in alerting settler and indigenous societies alike to their past ecological impacts and future environmental trajectories.
From the discovery of the fossil Archaeopteryx to more than 10,000 different documented species today, birds have become the second most diversified class of vertebrates on Earth. Birds have evolved extensively since they first emerged in prehistoric times--but that diversity could dwindle and even vanish unless we take steps to conserve their habitats, ensuring that they sustain their numbers and their variety. This natural history of birds starts in the distant past--going back to the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Paleogene periods--in order to get a broader understanding of the birds that we see today. Chapters cover their lives, breeding, flight, migration and more, while also highlighting some especially unique bird fossils, such as the Pelagornis Sandersi, which had a wingspan of more than 20 feet. Also included are chapters on the loss of needed habitats, the current decline of native birds, and what can be done to reverse it.
