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158 books about Birds and 2
start with J
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158 books about Birds and 2
158 books about Birds
2 start with J start with J
2 start with J start with J
Jim Burns' Arizona Birds
From the Backyard to the Backwoods
Jim Burns
University of Arizona Press, 2008
Arizona is renowned as a premier birding state, a place where many species rarely seen anywhere else in the country reach the northern end of their migratory range. Jim Burns’ Arizona Birds is a lively portrayal of the habits and habitats of seventy-five of these unique southwestern species. Burns has written much more than a field guide, site guide, or scientific survey. He has compiled and expanded upon his feature column Arizona Special Species to create an original kind of birding book that is more at home on your bedside table than in your backpack. Bird-watchers new to the game will find a wealth of knowledge on and insight into some familiar favorites, as well as an idea of what it takes to accomplish more uncommon sightings.
Veteran birders will appreciate Burns’ unique incorporation of natural history and other details beyond the usual taxonomic data, and will enjoy reminders of their own triumphs and heartbreaks in his colorful personal accounts of vehicular breakdowns, photographic faux pas, and egregious identification errors in the field. Illustrated in full color by seventy-five of the author’s own outstanding photographs, this book also features a five-level rating system, beginning with birds you can see in your own backyard and ending with those requiring either pure dumb luck or years of study and perseverance to spot. But whether you have spent years in search of the Flammulated Owl or are just curious about the wildlife in your desert backyard, this book will have you laughing, learning, and reaching for the binoculars in hopes of creating your own encounters with Arizona’s incredible bird species.
Veteran birders will appreciate Burns’ unique incorporation of natural history and other details beyond the usual taxonomic data, and will enjoy reminders of their own triumphs and heartbreaks in his colorful personal accounts of vehicular breakdowns, photographic faux pas, and egregious identification errors in the field. Illustrated in full color by seventy-five of the author’s own outstanding photographs, this book also features a five-level rating system, beginning with birds you can see in your own backyard and ending with those requiring either pure dumb luck or years of study and perseverance to spot. But whether you have spent years in search of the Flammulated Owl or are just curious about the wildlife in your desert backyard, this book will have you laughing, learning, and reaching for the binoculars in hopes of creating your own encounters with Arizona’s incredible bird species.
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Journeys with Emperors
Tracking the World's Most Extreme Penguin
Gerald L. Kooyman and Jim Mastro
University of Chicago Press, 2023
With stunning photographs from the ice edge, this firsthand account of a researcher’s time in Antarctica and of the perilous journeys of the world’s largest penguin species: the iconic emperor.
Nearly all emperor penguin colonies are extremely remote; of the sixty-six known, fewer than thirty have been visited by humans, and even fewer have been the subject of successful research programs. One of the largest known emperor penguin colonies is found on a narrow band of sea ice attached to the Antarctic continent. In Journeys with Emperors, Gerald L. Kooyman and Jim Mastro take us to this far-flung colony in the Ross Sea, revealing how scientists gained access to it, and what they learned while living among the penguins as they raised their chicks.
The Ross Sea colony is close to the ice edge, which spares the penguins the long, energy-draining march for which other colonies are well-known. But life at this colony is not without movement. The proximity of the ice edge to the birds allowed researchers to observe the penguins as they came and went on their foraging journeys, including their interactions with leopard seals and killer whales. What the scientists witnessed revealed important aspects of emperor penguin behavior and physiology. For instance, they discovered that in the course of hunting for food, some of the penguins dive to depths of greater than five hundred meters (a third of a mile, deeper than any other diving bird). And crucially: most of the emperor’s life is actually spent at sea, with fledged chicks and adults making separate, perilous journeys across icy water—to mature or to feed before they must fast while they molt. When chick nurturing is complete, the fledglings abandon the colony in large groups, heading north to the Southern Ocean. The adults leave at the same time, traveling one thousand kilometers eastward across the Ross Sea to a sea-ice sanctuary for molting. During this journey, they must gain enough weight to survive the month-long molt, when every feather is replaced and the birds cannot enter the water to feed. After the molt, many if not most return to the colony to breed once again. For the males, this means another fast—this time for 120 days as they incubate their eggs.
Featuring original color photographs and complemented with online videos, Journeys with Emperors is both an eye-opening overview of the emperor penguin’s life and a thrilling tale of scientific discovery in one of the most remote, harsh, and beautiful places on Earth.
The Ross Sea colony is close to the ice edge, which spares the penguins the long, energy-draining march for which other colonies are well-known. But life at this colony is not without movement. The proximity of the ice edge to the birds allowed researchers to observe the penguins as they came and went on their foraging journeys, including their interactions with leopard seals and killer whales. What the scientists witnessed revealed important aspects of emperor penguin behavior and physiology. For instance, they discovered that in the course of hunting for food, some of the penguins dive to depths of greater than five hundred meters (a third of a mile, deeper than any other diving bird). And crucially: most of the emperor’s life is actually spent at sea, with fledged chicks and adults making separate, perilous journeys across icy water—to mature or to feed before they must fast while they molt. When chick nurturing is complete, the fledglings abandon the colony in large groups, heading north to the Southern Ocean. The adults leave at the same time, traveling one thousand kilometers eastward across the Ross Sea to a sea-ice sanctuary for molting. During this journey, they must gain enough weight to survive the month-long molt, when every feather is replaced and the birds cannot enter the water to feed. After the molt, many if not most return to the colony to breed once again. For the males, this means another fast—this time for 120 days as they incubate their eggs.
Featuring original color photographs and complemented with online videos, Journeys with Emperors is both an eye-opening overview of the emperor penguin’s life and a thrilling tale of scientific discovery in one of the most remote, harsh, and beautiful places on Earth.
[more]
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