This part of the USA has some great birding sites and some great birders. I didn’t field-test this book as I was given it when in Tucson and I had Richard Fray to show me birds so I didn’t need a book. But flicking through the pages now, it has everything that you want from…
Category: BOOK REVIEWS
Sunday Book Review – Britain’s Freshwater Fishes by Mark Everard
We talk about fishermen (and rarely of fisherwomen) but we don’t talk about fish-watchers as we will talk about bird-watchers, do we? Why is that? There isn’t a Royal Society for the Protection Fish nor a Fishlife nor a Fish Conservation. Yes there are organisations which do some good work for our fishy friends…
Sunday Book Review – Feral by George Monbiot
This is a book that many people ought to read. I read most of it before I went to the USA and then read all of it, some of it several times, on my return. I was reading it again at 6am yesterday morning in the back garden of the Old Mill Hotel in Salisbury…
Sunday Book Review – A World in One Cubic Foot: Portraits of Biodiversity by David Liittschwager
This book is quite different and very interesting. It was put together by recording, in six different habitats, for a 24-hour period in each, the species that passed through a metal frame of 1-foot dimension. Then Liittschwager photographed a whole range of species that had occurred within that metal frame in that time-frame. It’s a…
Book review – Looking for the Goshawk by Conor Jameson
I liked Conor’s previous book, but I like this one even more. Whereas in Silent Spring Revisited Conor lived through the events described but seemed, to me, to be a little detached from them, this is a book where he describes what he did, and where he went, to get to grips better with a…
Book Review – Bird Conservation by Williams et al
Bird Conservation – global evidence for the effects of interventions by David R Williams, Robert G Pople, David A Showler, Lynn V Dicks, Matthew F Child, Erasmus KHJ zu Ermgassen and William J Sutherland. Published by Pelagic Publishing. Paperback £34.99, Hardback £64.99, e-Book £19.99. 575 pages. This is a very useful reference book for conservation…
Book review – Britain’s Sea Mammals by Jon Dunn, Robert Still and Hugh Harrop
The first cetacean I ever saw was probably a harbour porpoise off the coast of Argyll – although I thought it was a dolphin. And the first whale I saw, which surfaced in a raft of Manx shearwaters off the north coast of Rhum, was probably a minke whale – although I thought it was…
Book review – Nature all around us by Beatrix Beisner, Christian Messier and Luc-Alain Giraldeau
This is a lovely little book: small in size but great in scope. It is subtitled a ‘guide to urban ecology’ but since ecology is the same everywhere it is a guide to ecology which has been approached through the everyday sights and sounds that surround those people who might think that they are most…
Book review – Birds in a Cage by Derek Niemann
I liked this book. Birds in a Cage is the story of four British prisoners of war, Second Lieutenant Peter Conder, Second Lieutenant John Buxton, Second Lieutenant George Waterston and Squadron Leader John Barrett, who, after WWII, went on to influence nature conservation practice and policy. It’s a remarkable tale which is beautifully told. On…
Book review – Wild Hope by Andrew Balmford
I count the author of this book as a friend and therefore you might want to discount all the good things I am going to write about his excellent book – please don’t do that. Professor Andrew Balmford FRS is one of just a handful of UK academics who understands nature conservation through doing it,…