Bird Watching


Book Description

Larry Bird captured the imagination and admiration of basketball fans throughout his thirteen-year career with the Boston Celtics with his trademark style of creative, intelligent, exciting, and hard-nosed play. And then, last year in his rookie season as head coach of the Indiana Pacers, he infused the team with these same qualities -- and the results were remarkable. He turned around a slumping franchise and led the Pacers to the conference finals. To finish off a great season, Bird was named the NBA's "Coach of the Year" -- quite an accolade for Bird, who had never coached before and surprised many fans with his unusual and unorthodox coaching methods. This book is a look into one of the greatest minds to have ever stepped on a hardwood court. Larry Bird shares his inner thoughts on basketball that to date only his Celtic teammates and Pacers players have been privy. From dissecting offensive and defensive strategies to assessing the talent of NBA players; from sharing the genesis of his coaching philosophies to how he deals with today's overpriced and temperamental players, it's all there. This book is Larry Bird's basketball playbook, and it's the one book every basketball fan will want to read. Cover design by Tom Tafuri Cover photograph by Glenn James/NBA Photos




Watching Water Birds


Book Description

Provides a personal look at various species of fresh- and saltwater birds, including loons and grebes, mergansers, mallards, wood ducks, Canada geese, gulls, and herons.




Look Up!


Book Description

“A chatty, appealing introduction. . . . Small and accessible, this is jam-packed with accurate information likely to increase any potential birder’s enthusiasm and knowledge.” — Kirkus Reviews(starred review) This conversational, humorous introduction to bird-watching encourages kids to get outdoors with a sketchbook and really look around. Quirky full-color illustrations portray dozens of birds chatting about their distinctive characteristics, including color, shape, plumage, and beak and foot types, while tongue-in-cheek cartoons feature banter between birds, characters, and the reader. Interactive and enjoyable tips bring an age-old hobby to new life for the next generation of bird-watchers, and eighteen new pages of activities, including drawing, mapmaking, and a scavenger hunt, make this paperback edition a must-have.




How to Know the Birds


Book Description

"In this elegant narrative, celebrated naturalist Ted Floyd guides you through a year of becoming a better birder. Choosing 200 top avian species to teach key lessons, Floyd introduces a new, holistic approach to bird watching and shows how to use the tools of the 21st century to appreciate the natural world we inhabit together whether city, country or suburbs." -- From book jacket.




Birdwatchingwatching


Book Description

Alex Horne is not a birdwatcher. But his dad is, so with the prospect of fatherhood looming on his own horizon, Alex decided there was no better time to really get to know both his father and his father's favourite hobby. So he challenged his dad to a Big Year: from 1 January to 31 December they would each try to spot as many birds as possible; the one who spied the most species would be the victor. Along the way Alex would find out what makes his dad tick, pick up a bit of fatherly wisdom and perhaps even 'get into' birdwatching himself. Join Alex as he journeys from Barnes to Bahrain in this charming tale of obsession, manliness, fathers and sons, and the highly amusing twists and turns of a year-long bird race.




Watching Birds


Book Description

This revised edition of the late James Fisher's much praised Watching Birds is the work of Dr Jim Flegg, Director of the British Trust for Ornithology. In his Preface Dr Flegg writes: 'It is a daunting task to revise the bird book on which you cut your teeth: it is the surest measure of the man who wrote it that what is needed, after thirty-odd years, is an updating and not a sweeping revision.' Among James Fisher's deservedly popular writings Watching Birds was probably the most read and consulted. After several reprints (published by Penguin Books) he planned to re-write it, and it is wholly appropriate that the work should now be done by Dr Flegg who, like the original author, has done much to help arouse and stimulate a widening interest in watching and understanding the life and world of birds. It is an indication of that interest today that radio and TV programmes (in which Dr Flegg has frequently participated) have audiences of millions. Such numbers are hardly surprising since few leisure activities offer as effective or as gratifying an antidote to the pressures of modern life as birdwatching - and few can be as readily and inexpensively pursued at almost any time, anywhere. Watching Birds has been an introduction and an item of basic equipment to tens of thousands of birdwatchers in the past, and this new and revised edition is assured of an even wider audience. Jacket colour photograph by Jim Flegg.




Where to Watch Birds in World Cities


Book Description

An indispensable book for traveling bird enthusiasts who find themselves in a foreign city with a little free time This is the first birder's guide to sixty cities of the world. Designed and written for the bird enthusiast who is traveling for reasons other than birding--on business, with family, for academic conferences--the book offers assistance in locating birds, identifying local bird residents, and using public transportation. Where to Watch Birds in World Cities deserves a permanent place in the suitcase or briefcase of anyone who would like to make the most of limited time in an unfamiliar city by learning about the local birds. Entries for each of the sixty cities provide an introduction to the city and detailed information on major bird-watching sites, including lists of typical summer and winter bird residents and migrants and directions for getting to the sites using public transportation. The book is illustrated throughout with maps and attractive line drawings. In no way a replacement for detailed guides to specific cities or regions, this book instead fills an important gap for travelers whose birding, though done on short notice, can nevertheless prove delightful. Some cities included in this guide: Milan Toronto Mexico City Tokyo Los Angeles Taipei Lima Singapore Kampala Shanghai Hong Kong Dublin Copenhagen Seattle Chicago San Francisco Caracas Rome Cape Town Rio Buenos Aires Paris Boston New York Berlin New Delhi Zurich Amsterdam Nairobi Warsaw A&C Black




Bird Therapy


Book Description

Longlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize 'I can't remember the last book I read that I could say with absolute assurance would save lives. But this one will' Chris Packham 'Fabulously direct and truthful, filled with energy but devoid of self-pity . . . I was impressed and enchanted. Highly recommended' Stephen Fry 'Succeeds – triumphantly – in articulating with great honesty what it is like to suffer with a mental illness, and in providing strategies for coping' Mail on Sunday When Joe Harkness suffered a breakdown in 2013, he tried all the things his doctor recommended: medication helped, counselling was enlightening, and mindfulness grounded him. But nothing came close to nature, particularly birds. How had he never noticed such beauty before? Soon, every avian encounter took him one step closer to accepting who he is. The positive change in Joe's wellbeing was so profound that he started a blog to record his experience. Three years later he has become a spokesperson for the benefits of birdwatching, spreading the word everywhere from Radio 4 to Downing Street. In this groundbreaking book filled with practical advice, Joe explains the impact that birdwatching had on his life, and invites the reader to discover these extraordinary effects for themselves.




The Joy of Birdwatching


Book Description

This pocket-sized miscellany, packed with fascinating facts, handy hints and captivating stories and quotes from the world of birds, is perfect for anyone who knows the incomparable joy of birdwatching.




The Life of the Skies


Book Description

Aerial delights: A history of America as seen through the eyes of a bird-watcher John James Audubon arrived in America in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president, and lived long enough to see his friend Samuel Morse send a telegraphic message from his house in New York City in the 1840s. As a boy, Teddy Roosevelt learned taxidermy from a man who had sailed up the Missouri River with Audubon, and yet as president presided over America’s entry into the twentieth century, in which our ability to destroy ourselves and the natural world was no longer metaphorical. Roosevelt, an avid birder, was born a hunter and died a conservationist. Today, forty-six million Americans are bird-watchers. The Life of the Skies is a genre-bending journey into the meaning of a pursuit born out of the tangled history of industrialization and nature longing. Jonathan Rosen set out on a quest not merely to see birds but to fathom their centrality—historical and literary, spiritual and scientific—to a culture torn between the desire both to conquer and to conserve. Rosen argues that bird-watching is nothing less than the real national pastime—indeed it is more than that, because the field of play is the earth itself. We are the players and the spectators, and the outcome—since bird and watcher are intimately connected—is literally a matter of life and death.