Taking More Birds


Book Description

The complex art of wing shooting and an analysis of the skills needed for accuracy.




Successful Shotgunning


Book Description

• A solid guide for becoming a better shot • Wing shooting, sporting clays, skeet shooting • Expert teacher and coach shares years of experience Successful Shotgunning focuses on wing-shooting and sporting clays techniques. Gain a better understanding of the shooting process as a whole as you sharpen your skills and become a better shot. How to evaluate moving targets in wing-shooting situations in the field, in a competitive environment, on a sporting clays course, or on a skeet field. Choose the correct gun and gun fit for you; learn to diagnose some common eye problems and correct your aim; tame recoil; and deal with the challenges of various sporting clays targets. Quote from the book: "Successful shotgunning isn't an inherent trait, it is a skill and it must be learned like any other skill. It requires systematic study and the ability to accurately calculate the variables of moving targets. My coaching methods involve an intuitive technique that is based on pure logic and a systematic breakdown of all the variables involved. This is how the experts shoot. Over a period of time they build up a personal mental repertoire of sight pictures, which they can then successfully apply to each target, regardless of whether it is a quail, dove, duck or clay target. They then have the ability to see a subtle but consequential target/barrel relationship on every shot and adjust to each different shooting situation."




Wingshooting


Book Description

"Pete Blakeley's revolutionary unit lead system for learning to shoot well has put more birds in many a hunter's bag. His unique instruction helps simplify that elusive and key element of the successful bird hunter: forward allowance, or lead. Successful shotgunning depends on creating accurate sight pictures of the birds. Wingshooting explores the three variables that determine each sight picture--the flight line of the bird, its speed, and the distance to the bird--to help your decipher the correct lead for each bird. This is shooting advice from not only a fellow bird hunter but also a professional shooting coach who explains why you miss and what you can do about it. Pete Blakeley's approach emphasizes how to apply a specific lead to a specific target, and his colorful stories bring the hunt to life in these pages, whether it's doves in Muleshoe, Texas, or driven pheasants in Scotland"--Dust jacket flap.





Book Description




Taking Wing


Book Description

In 1861, just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, a scientist named Hermann von Meyer made an amazing discovery. Hidden in the Bavarian region of Germany was a fossil skeleton so exquisitely preserved that its wings and feathers were as obvious as its reptilian jaws and tail. This transitional creature offered tangible proof of Darwin's theory of evolution. Hailed as the First Bird, Archaeopteryx has remained the subject of heated debates for the last 140 years. Are birds actually living dinosaurs? Where does the fossil record really lead? Did flight originate from the "ground up" or "trees down"? Pat Shipman traces the age-old human desire to soar above the earth and to understand what has come before us. Taking Wing is science as adventure story, told with all the drama by which scientific understanding unfolds.




Birds of Paradise


Book Description

In this dazzling photo essay, Laman and Scholes present gorgeous full-color photographs of all 39 species of the Birds of Paradise that highlight their unique and extraordinary plumage and mating behavior.




Common Birds and Their Songs


Book Description

Presents the songs and calls of fifty North American birds that are common to residential settings, city parks, and urban areas.




The Bird Way


Book Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, a radical investigation into the bird way of being, and the recent scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds -- how they live and how they think. “There is the mammal way and there is the bird way.” But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries –– What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They are also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own: deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, infanticide, but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play. Some of these extraordinary behaviors are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of, well, birdness: a mother bird that kills her own infant sons, and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds as if they were her own; a bird that collaborates in an extraordinary way with one species—ours—but parasitizes another in gruesome fashion; birds that give gifts and birds that steal; birds that dance or drum, that paint their creations or paint themselves; birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders and birds that summon playmates with a special call—and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, from the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, Jennifer Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect, in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behavior, birds vary. It is what we love about them. As E.O Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.




Bird by Bird


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times). “Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.” —The New York Times Book Review For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne’s father—also a writer—in the iconic passage that gives the book its title: “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”




Close to Birds


Book Description

75 gorgeous close-up avian photographs make this exquisite coffee table book the perfect gift for bird lovers An unusual blend of charming heartfelt personal essays and in-depth scientific information bring the reader uniquely into the inner lives of birds Intertwining with our everyday lives like no other wild creature, birds inspire our curiosity and appeal to our sense of wonder and whimsy. These stunning and intimate photographs capture the beauty and detail of each bird's form, as well as their unique character and personality. Taken while working with researchers at observatories and wildlife refuges, the images offer rare close-up detail sure to delight any bird lover. The accompanying short essays share often-hidden elements from birds' lives, with both charming personal stories and detailed scientific research. Discover why robins sing so early in the morning and learn the science behind the almost magical iridescence of mallard feathers. This enchanting collection shares the irresistible joy and marvel of birds, from the golden eagle to the purple sandpiper.




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