This book, like the author’s 2018 The Ascent of Birds – reviewed here, is a very clear and interesting explanation of a complicated and technical story. How did mammals evolve into species as different as the Duck-billed Platypus, Blue Whale, Vampire Bat and you and me? The answers are here and they appear to be…
Tag: Pelagic
Sunday book review – The Pied Woodpeckers by Gerard Gorman
Following on from The Wryneck (published 2022, click here for my review) and The Green Woodpecker (published 2023, click here for my review) woodpecker expert and enthusiast, Gerard Gorman, brings you a volume which deals with five black and white woodpeckers (Lesser Spotted, Middle Spotted, Great Spotted, Syrian, and White-backed), two of which occur in…
Sunday book review – Pan-species Listing by Graeme Lyons
If your New Year resolution is anything to do with seeing more wildlife, becoming a little better at identifying what you see or getting to the top of the list of individuals who have seen the most species of wildlife in the UK then this book is for you. The author is widely recognised as…
Sunday book review – The Game of Species by Julian Simon Lopez-villalta
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This slim volume of little more than 100 pages addresses the big questions of life on Earth. Not, ‘Shall we go to the pub?’ but ‘Why are there so many species and why are there more in some places than others?’. The author is a proper biologist and he writes this book to explain how…
Sunday book review – The Merlin by Frank Rennie
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While breakfasting on 14 January, I glanced out the window and saw a Merlin flash past over my Northamptonshire garden at fence-top height. The sighting might have been an eighth of a second or perhaps less but our smallest falcon was unmistakable and put a smile on my face for the rest of the…
Sunday book review – No Island too Far by Michael Brooke
Forty years ago I shared an office in Oxford with the author of this book and he had, even then, clocked up an impressive range of island visits. He has kept going ever since and this book chronicles visits to islands in all five of Earth’s oceans. Mike Brooke’s visits to islands ranged from very…
Sunday book review – The Physics of Birds and Birding by Michael Hurben
Like many biologists, I have a dose of physics-envy born out of fear of physics. At school, I could cope quite well with mechanics because that felt like snooker writ large but when it came to forces, energy and electricity it all was a bit much for me. And so it was with mixed feelings,…
Sunday book review – Pine Marten by Dan Bagur
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This is a timely book as this native UK (and Ireland) species is making a strong comeback and so may be appearing in a wood near you soon. Pine Martens are spreading on their own once released from the pressure of illegal killing but also because they are being reintroduced in several parts of their…
Sunday book review – Protected Species and Biodiversity by Tim Reed
This is a handbook and I think it will be a very useful handbook for local authority planners and ecologists who want to do a good job for nature. It is not a book to read for pleasure but that’s simply because it’s a book to read for information and knowledge. For example, Chapter 5’s…
Sunday book review – The Vanishing Mew Gull by Ray Reedman
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I have to admire the author for bringing together a taxonomic list of 1100 birds found in the Western Palearctic (about 1 in 10 of the world’s birds) and explaining the origins of their English vernacular names and scientific names. If that is the book you want, then this is the book for you. I…