Published by Whittles Publishing Hard back Price £30.00 296 pages John is better known for his work on White tailed Eagles but it looks like in his spare time he had a ‘love’ for lighthouses and has seen an amazing amount of the UK’s coastal limits. In recent years he has been blessed by working on round the coast cruise lines so has ‘bumped’ into many on these trips. As a birder it is amazing how many even I have seen as they are definitely the place where birds land on our shores and we tend to go to find them. Not only do these sites have birds but many are turned into observatories and even bird reserves just naming a few like South Stack, Portland, Fair Isle, North Ronaldsay and Farne I
New Naturalist No 126 published by William Collins Isbn 978 0 00 736769 6 Hardback £55.00 Softback £35.00 Pages 416 The Brecon Beacons is one of our National Parks with over 3.6 million visitors a year to its area. It is the southern end of the last ice age leaving the old red sandstone of the area rather rounded instead of large peaks. The name comes from the fact the high ground was used as a ‘beacon’ network to pass information around the area. A line of limestone in the south of the area explains why there are 171 lime kilns in the national park! Like all new naturalist books the chapters are set out in habitats starting in the uplands with limited heath and summed up by ‘in general the
By David Callahan edited by Dominic Mitchell Published by Bloomsbury in June 2014 ISBN 978 1 4081 8613 3 Hardback Priced £20.00 with 224 pages As a mad birder interested in ancient birds may be more than modern ones I was thrilled by the first few pages and even got a mention in the bibliography for my ‘Pharaohs Birds’. The book continues through the ages and modern toys from books to binos used in the game of chasing birds around the world are a big influence on the book. Nice to see the ‘milk bottle top’ get a mention about birds adapting to a human period only for the ‘pint on the door step’ to disappear as well as the milkman! Modern phones are now with all those apps when once there wa
Published by the University of New Hampshire Press price £23.00 ISBN 978-1-61168-225-0 - 252 pages hardback This is a fascinating book about several species of Cormorants around the world. The idea of the book is to show how man in his lack of wisdom have taken a ‘black’ bird and turned it into a monster. The first chapter is trying to show how some cultures have used the skills of the Cormorant to their benefit with the fish being brought to a boat and dropped for the fisherman to use as his food. Where falconry was brought to the world from China, ‘fishing’ Cormorants also became a popular hobby for some western countries. Both French and English nobility took part with the ‘muse’ [Co
By Mark Avery published by Bloomsbury ISBN 978 1 4729 0625 0 Hardback price £16.99 July 2014 This is a dramatic tale of a bird once seen in its billions in America by people like Wilson, Audubon and King when it was thought to be the commonest bird in the world. It was later reduced to extinction in a few decades! Mark has done a great job on the research of not just the bird but the history of America at this time. The expansion of America by European settlers was the death nail to this species. They were once harvested by Native Americans with the Seneca people believing that the birds were a ‘tribute of food’. The state senate claimed ‘no need for protection’ in 1857 but the bird was gone
Forward by Robert Bateman Isbn – 978-1-904078-47-0 Published by Langford Press hardback 144 pages Published in August 2012 Price £38 This book is as good as a guide book. Yes the paintings are that good but not so you think they are photographs. It also could be the ‘Where’s Wally’ of American birds because it is so much fun going from page to page to find all the birds. You do not have to be knowledgeable about American birds you can have an ID book next to you while you flick through the pages to help you identify them. Not only are you learning about the birds but you visit every state in America. This is terrible for me as I have only visited a hand full when you see all those names of t
By The Barn owl Trust Isbn – 978-1-907807-14-5 Isbn – 978-1-907807-34-3 [e book] Published by Pelagic Publishing July 2012 softback Pages 395 Price £39.99 This is the work of David Ramsden and all at the Barn owl Trust covering over 20 years of dealing with this species in south west England. The book is aimed to help any one who works with Barn Owl especially planners of roads, houses and buildings at large where Barn owls may be found. It is also to help people carrying out Barn Owl work such as surveys, licencing, management of the land and especially the use of poison which sadly has had a dramatic effect on many species which the poison is not intended for. [secondary poisoning] Having
Published by Bloomsbury Hard back Price £14.99 ISBN 978 1 4729 1531 3 Pages 224 out 12th March 2015 Here is a bird book full of Bill Oddie’s former writings in magazines and blogs. There are 39 short chapters on his published work and 8 on his blogs. As you would expect from a comedian there is a lot of humour in his wonderings around the world as well as in this country. Real happenings like a fox running away with his neighbour’s slippers to why he never went on ‘strictly come dancing’. How to save himself 20 hours on a boat by stating ‘flightless cormorant- It’s a cormorant, it can’t fly, I will imagine it’! This was on one of his press trips but there were also full birding trips, TV
Isbn – 978-1-904078-44-9 Published by Langford press May 2012 softback 196 pages Price £18.00 With so much persecution going on these days of our raptors sometimes you feel that it may be time to put off the lights and shut the door and walk away from all these problems but read this book and you will know why the mountains and hills of Scotland would not be the same without this iconic bird flying over them. Stuart has spent over 30 years trampling these glens, mountains and moorlands in search of this bird and to study the breeding behaviour, the social behaviour and the food the bird eats. This is not a book on land management but exactly what Stuart found over all these years. Every wet
Published by Langford Press ISBN – 978-1-904078-38-8 Price £38.00 Pages – 190 - Hardback This is the second book by John in Langford press’s Wildlife Art series. His first being ‘ Between the tides’ which came out in 2007. John travels the British Isles looking for his subjects which vary from Guillemots to Gannets to Shags to seals. The great thing for me was how many of the locations I had been to and that was not including the ones on the north side of the Solway which I often cover. This year’s trip to Orkney or Mull never mind Dorset and if you have missed out on some of the locations I am sure John’s art will also stimulate you to get out and travel to enjoy our great coast. John is ba
by John A Love Published buy Whittles Publishing Isbn number 978-1-84995-080-0 Price £19.95 248 pages John is a lucky lad having been in the right place at the right time to see the reintroduction of the Sea Eagle right from the beginning. It was the voluntary work at Loch Garten which saw him contact with people like Roy Dennis and George Waterson. Then he was off to Fair Isle for the first reintroduction which most people think of a failure but it was a learning curve for the later Rum reintroduction. What John described as a short stint on Rum actually lasted 10 years! Arriving with a rucksack he finally came away with a boat full of belongings as well as a wife! Funding from several sau
