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Wildlife Books
Books related to wildlife and wild animals.
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Red-Tails in Love : PALE MALE'S STORY--A True Wildlife Drama in Central Park (Vintage Departures)
The literature of bird watching is full of memoirs set in out-of-the-way, rural locales, but few are set in the heart of big cities such as New York, where Wall Street Journal ornithology columnist Marie Winn hangs her hat. In this delightful account, Winn tells of birding in Central Park with an unlikely band of fellow enthusiasts (including Mary Tyler Moore and Woody Allen). Among her objects of study were a pair of increasingly uncommon wood thrushes who set up their nest in the park's Ramble, treating city dwellers to their "penetrating, flutelike, heart-stoppingly beautiful song: Ee-oh-lee, ee-oh-loo-ee-lee, ee-lay-loo," and a pair of red-tail hawks who courted, mated, and produced offspring, thus quickening the spirits of Manhattanites. Both urbanites and those inclined to country matters will enjoy Winn's gracefully written story of observation and discovery.
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The American Eagle
Aloof and powerful, the once endangered bald eagle is slowly making a comeback, ecologically speaking, throughout much of North America, to which it is unique. For the last two decades wildlife photographer John Pezzenti has been recording this reversal of fortunes, traveling where the eagles do and bringing home images from his travels, some 150 of which are gathered in this volume. Many of Pezzenti's striking views come from the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska, home to a huge concentration of bald eagles; some 20,000 nesting pairs are found in the region, nourished by silver salmon and other large fish. Pezzenti captures images of little-seen aspects of eagle behavior, including courtship flights that involve several males, who compete to mate with a female by exhibiting an "impressive display of calls and acrobatic maneuvers." He also provides the only photographic record yet published of eagles hatching in the wild, a sequence that alone is worth the price of the book. While noting that conditions are much improved, especially after the federal ban of the use of the pesticide DDT, Pezzenti observes that bald eagles are not yet wholly safe from harm; a thriving black market for flight feathers exists, in which a single white tail plume can bring a thousand dollars. For admirers of this spectacular raptor, Pezzenti's book is required reading. --Gregory McNamee
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Land of the Tiger: A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent
In this companion volume to the BBC/PBS television series, Indian biologist Valmik Thapar, a specialist on tigers, takes a leisurely look at the extraordinary animals that inhabit the subcontinent, among them serpent eagles and kiangs, water monitors and one-horned rhinoceroses, cobras and bustards. Although India and the adjoining countries are crowded with humans, and although wildlife-protection laws are a recent development there, animal life continues to thrive; the diversity of flora and fauna, Thapar writes, are the richest in the world. He attributes this uncommon variety of species to religious beliefs that accord the living world an uncommon respect and reverence. Anyone planning a visit to India will benefit from this lively book, as will those who are merely curious.
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