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List Price: £21.00
Our Price: £17.55
Author:
Springhouse
By Springhouse Publishing Co ,U.S.
 Essential for all nurses, 2008-06-12
I work as a nutrition nurse and recommend this book to all the acute sector health care staff I lecture to and work with. It's an essential, but importantly, simple guide that has real value in your everyday work
List Price: £18.95
Our Price: £12.24
Author:
Richard Estes
By Chelsea Green Pub Co
The best in the field, 2008-02-19
Like another reviewer, I first came across this book whilst on safari. This is the book that the guides use. Not all guides, only the best ones in my experience of 9 safaris. Having said that, this is not a book aimed at somebody who wants to simply know what animal they are looking at. There are lots of field guides that do that far better, and have colour illustrations as well.
This is a book for those who have already got past the identification stage and are interested in understanding the behaviour of the animals they are watching. If that is what you want to do, this is the book for you.
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £4.44
Author:
J.A. Baker
By NYRB Classics
my absolute favourite book, 2008-10-28
The first time I read this book, it jumped into my list of top five best books ever read. By the third time it was at number one.
The whole thing is lyrical, mesmerising and full of a strong sense of drama. All Baker does is go out and watch the peregrines. The birds exhibit normal bird behaviour: they fly, they hunt, they feed, they rest. Baker's prose infuses this daily ritual with a constant breathless beauty, and it sticks in your mind for ages after you've finished the book. He describes a nightjar's call as "a stream of wine spilling from a height into a deep and booming cask"; an owl's face as "grotesque, as though some lost and shrunken knight had withered to an owl"; the winter, when it arrives, as so cold that "Layers of ice seemed to shatter across my frozen face." Every single sentence in the book is beautiful and deeply affecting. It completely transcends category--it belongs in every library. I only wish there were an audio version so I could listen to it every day as well.
List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £12.99
Author:
Jan Fennell
By HarperCollins Entertainment
The behavioural problems covered in The Dog Listener will sound all too familiar to anyone who shares their life with a canine companion. During the 25 years that Jan Fennell has been working with dogs, she's been increasingly aware of the ways in which communication between man's best friend and ourselves has broken down. Inspired by Monty Roberts, Fennell embraces similar ideas to those found in The Man Who Listens to Horses. Rather than trying to fit human psychology to animals, the starting point is observing how animals communicate, how they structure their groups in the wild and what they think their role is. Initially Fennell looks at the role that dogs have played historically--primarily a working role, in which human and animal worked side by side to the same goal. Many owners flinch as the idea of a dog "working", with associations of oppression and hierarchy. But dogs naturally form a hierarchical society with the strongest, most intelligent dog leading the pack. Humans might thrive on the concept of democracy but dogs don't automatically feel the same way. When we understand and respect a dog's mindset, effective training can be done with intell...
Excellent, 2008-10-10
This is excellent and I would very highly recommended it. Having three Border Collies (two of them rescues with various problems), life could be difficult at times, to say the least. Jan Fennell's approach has been virtually foolproof for us, and in the end we were the ones needing training! If you follow her instructions consistently (and forever), pretty much any unwanted behaviour can be sorted out. I also highly recommend Turid Rugaas' 'On talking terms with dogs - calming signals'; it's an invaluable aid and accompaniment to The Dog Listener.
List Price: £4.99
Our Price: £1.36
Author:
Michael Chinery
By Collins
An excellent guide, 2006-08-14
No butterflies or moths but there is a separate guide available to cover those groups. This seems a reasonable decision when publishing in a pocket-sized format as a combined guide would mean that only half the number of species could be covered.
The information in the guide is clear and concise with good quality photographs for every entry. There are also illustrations on many entries that clarify those anatomical differences important for identification of the species or sex.
A fascinating guide that's been invavluable for me in my new found hobby of macro insect photography.
List Price: £24.99
Our Price: £18.94
Author:
Carol Inskipp, Richard Grimmett, Tim Inskipp
By Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd
 Good comprehensive pocket guide, but has a few drawbacks., 2001-12-08
Well illustrated pictures and for the keener bird watcher, it's got all the species. The maps are clear, though not always near the pictures/text. It is confusingly classified (not the standard order). Naming follows the American system which is also confusing. In the area bird watchers will refer to species by their English names, so Grimmett is not helpful in this way. It would be better if it included commonly used names as well. An example of the confusion is with what is commonly called the 'blossom-headed parakeet' Psittacula cyanocephala. In Grimmett this is called the 'plum-headed' and, more confusingly, there's another called the 'blossom-headed' (P. roseata). Also, nobody in India seems to call a purple moorhen a purple gallinule.
However, it's a good all-round book. Combined with another which has the ordinary names and a bit more information, it was a good choice. (I took Collins Handguide to the birds of the Indian Sub-continent as well, which gives more info about the more common species).
I hope this review is helpful.
List Price: £30.00
Our Price: £9.98
Author:
Birdlife International
By Dorling Kindersley
Have you ever wondered how feathers grow, or what owls eat? Did you know Aepyornis titan, the extinct "elephant bird" of Madagascar, laid eggs that weighed 26 lbs? In Bird, all things avian are revealed: feathers, food and fossils, along with courtship, nest-building and camouflaging behaviour. In this Who's Who of the bird world, you'll discover which of our feathered friends is fastest, slowest, largest and smallest, and you'll see for yourself how new-born chicks hatch from eggs. Also included are handy pointers for attracting birds and observing some of the 600 species found solely in Europe. With superb colour photographs and eye-catching text, this highly informative guide will turn an inquisitive child into a knowledgable ornithologist in no time.
Definitive or not, this visual guide is truly a joy to behold, 2008-06-04
Dorling Kindersley have become well known for producing clear, visually oriented reference books for adults and children. They had previously published a score of smaller volumes on the subject of birds, but nothing quite like this: a definitive guide, as they claim. The book is best described as an encyclopaedia of birds. Measuring 30 x 25 cm and weighing over 2kg, it has the heft of an encyclopaedia and certainly isn't a field guide. At the same time it is an avian art gallery that exhibits some of the most exciting photographs of the world's most wonderful birds.
The book is split into three parts. The 44 page introduction discusses physiology, flight, behaviour, conservation and more. It is nicely concise, making use of numerous photographs and diagrams to explain what birds are. The second, 28-page section explores habitats in the same way. This leaves the lion's share - some 390 pages - for the systematic accounts, which cover all bird families and a selection of over 1,200 species. There is an introductory section for each taxonomic group - species are grouped by Order in the case of Non-passerines and Family for the Passerines. The majority of species are illustrated by a photograph in addition to range map with a short text on the salient features of the bird.
In the US edition (ISBN 075663153X - also available on Amazon), produced in collaboration with Audubon, a CD is included. Prepared by Cornell's Macauley Library of Natural Sounds, it is a delightful audio sample of vocalisations from 60 species from around the world.
This is just the sort of book that would have engrossed me for hours as a child. I remember spending many a happy evening poring over my Mitchell Beazley World Atlas of Birds, which would have been the nearest equivalent back then. Already my kids have spent more time looking through the book than I have! It's not too hard to imagine that this book, left idly on a coffee table, will persuade many a non-birding adult to pick up a pair of binoculars for the first time. In fact, it may just be the ideal book to explain to the fascination of birds to the uninitiated. I spend a lot of time watching birds in the wild and even I found myself gasping at some of the photographs. The double page spreads of a hunting Great Grey Owl, King Penguins under water, a Spotted Sandpiper chick hunkered down amongst leaf litter, Toco Toucan, Waxwings and Northern Cardinal were, for me, particular evocative.
This is a book I can heartily recommend to birders of all stripes - especially beginning birders, armchair travellers and anyone who likes to celebrate the beauty and diversity of birds. A sort of book equivalent of David Attenborough's "Life of Birds".
Chris Sharpe, 4 June 2008. ISBN: 1405306335
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: £9.57
Author:
Herbert A. Raffaele, Janis I. Raffaele, James Wiley, Orlando H. Garrido, Allan R. Keith
By Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd
Excellent clear practical guide, 2004-10-09
This guide is beautifully illustrated with clear drawings and distribution maps. It is portable, robustly bound and is well printed. I wanted a pocket guide to the birds of Margarita Island which is just off the Venezuelan coast but not an official West Indian Island. The Steven Hilty book "Birds of Venezuela" is exhaustive but too heavy, so I annotated the Helm guide to the West Indies. This proved a successful compromise.
I hope one day to visit the West Indies proper and will take my copy of this West Indies guide with me. I will not take the Macmillan "Birds of the Eastern Caribbean" as the photos are nowhere near as good as the illustrations in this Helm guide.
List Price: £24.99
Our Price: £17.90
Author:
Clive Barlow, Tim Wacher
By Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd
Excellent field guide, 2008-05-20
I own birding field guides to various countries and regions of the world and this is perhaps the most helpfully laid out of them all. The text includes authoritative yet concise descriptions for each species, along with notes on habits, status and distribution. The sections on separating similar species are also very useful.
The quality of the colour plates is generally extremely good, though the illustrations of a few species are relatively poor due to maintaining a single scale for each plate. (e.g. Quail Plover doesn't stand a chance when placed alongside Helmeted Guineafowl!)
As in any field guide, there are a few errors in the text, notably in the accounts of Short-toed and Beaudouin's Eagles (though I understand this reflects the confusion over the separation of these species current at the time of publication).
The book also suffers from a relatively weak binding. After intensive use in the field the covers tend to come off. Field guides should be tougher than this!
A second edition to iron out these deficiencies and to reflect the advances in knowledge of the birds of Gambia in the last ten years would be very valuable.
These deficiencies, however, are minor, and do not negate the fact that all in all this is an excellent field guide. I recommend it highly birders visiting Gambia
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