United States

Bird Song Ear Training Guide: Who Cooks for Poor Sam Peabody? Learn to Recognize the Songs of Birds from the Midwest and Northeast States

This Audio CD is designed for anyone who wants to learn how to recognize bird songs. It features the sounds of 189 different bird species found in the Midwest and Northeast States.

Each bird song recording is followed by a short description of the sound along with a common mnemonic used to remember it. Many well-known song mnemonics such as "Who cooks for you?" for the Barred Owl and "Poor Sam Peabody" for the White-throated Sparrow are included. Following the song and mnemonic, the source of the sound is revealed. By naming the bird at the end of each track, the listener is allowed to wonder and guess at the nature of the sound. Active listening, similar to what one experiences in the field while searching for an unknown bird song, is a key to engaging the memory process.

One way to use this CD is to enable the "Random Play" or "Shuffle" option on a home CD player, portable stereo, or personal computer. Although it may be frustrating at first, repetition of this "quiz" game will quickly improve recognition skills. Gaining familiarity with these songs will greatly increase any bird watcher's enjoyment and awareness of birds in their natural habitat.

Features:

- 189 bird species found in the Midwest and Northeast states
- Digital bird song recordings made in Wisconsin
- Brief narration after each song includes descriptive, memorable and often funny mnemonics
- Can be used as a field guide to learn and identify songs or as a recognition quiz game
- Easy to use alphabetical track listing of all birds and their mnemonics
- It is a great gift for any birdwatcher, beginner or advanced.
- Total running time: 60 minutes

Wildflowers of the Desert Southwest

Spring is a very special time in the Desert Southwest. An astonishing variety of wildflowers, nurtured by the winter rains, can bloom in wondrous profusion and carpet the desert floor and mountainside slopes with glorious color. Indeed, each year thousands of visitors time their trips to the desert Southwest to coincide with wildflower season, and in a good year the spectacle can make front-page news. Author Meg Quinn is a recognized authority on plants of the desert Southwest and is in demand as a public speaker. In Wildflowers of the Desert Southwest, Meg Quinn helps even the most amateur botanist to identify more than eighty-five of the most common and showy species found in the Sonoran Desert. Each species is described in detail and depicted in full-color photographs in their natural habitat. Species are further organized by color for ease of identification. Quinn also includes tips for the best locations to look for specific wildflowers.

Raptors of California (California Natural History Guides)

Raptors--the charismatic group of birds that includes hawks, eagles, and falcons--evoke power, swiftness, and grace. Raptors, or birds of prey, gaze calmly about while at rest, exuding confidence and nobility, and, while soaring aloft, they are absolute icons of the California landscape. Featuring descriptions of every diurnal California raptor, this state-of-the-art, beautifully illustrated guide is the first to combine identification of these important birds with a comprehensive discussion of their natural history.
Raptors of California notes well-established field marks in addition to introducing several new pointers that help distinguish especially difficult species. More than a field guide, the book also includes information on raptor anatomy, foraging, reproduction, movement, where and how to observe raptors, human-raptor interactions, raptor conservation, endangered species, caring for injured hawks, falconry, and more. Of special interest is the inclusion of previously unpublished descriptions of raptor behavior and many fascinating anecdotes and vivid observations from the field that provide new insights into the lives of these captivating birds.

* Covers 27 species, with range maps for the 18 species regularly occurring in California
* 104 color figures include photographs and wash drawings illustrating habitats, anatomy, field marks, and behavior
* 12 full-page color plates show the various plumages of each species--including rarities--as well as their appearance in flight
* Highly readable and accessible, even when covering complicated topics such as flight and evolutionary adaptations

A Field Guide to Texas Trees (Texas Monthly Field Guide Series)

A Practical Guide to Edible and Useful Plants: Including Recipes, Harmful Plants, Natural Dyes and Textile Fibers

Plants That Poison: An Illustrated Guide to Plants Poisonous to Man

Illustrated Guide to the Oaks of the Southern Californian Floristic Province: The Oaks of Coastal Southern California and Northwestern Baja California

A beautifully illustrated identification guide complete with easy to use keys, descriptions, and large maps for all 18 species of oaks that are known to occur in southern California west of the deserts. The book also includes two additional species that are endemic to northwestern Baja California, Mexico, and distributional information for other species of oaks that occur in Baja California north of El Rosario.

Introduction to the California Condor (California Natural History Guides)

The story of the California Condor--an awe-inspiring symbol of wilderness--is one of the most dramatic and contentious in conservation biology. Huge scavengers with wingspans reaching more than nine feet, Condors declined by 1985 to just nine individuals left in the wild. At that point, under a highly controversial program, the last birds were brought into captivity to create a population that could eventually be reestablished in nature. This engaging book, written by two scientists who were intimately involved with the Condor conservation effort, tells the full story of the California Condor, from the bird's evolution and biology to its captive breeding and subsequent releases, and its uncertain future. It introduces the largest soaring bird in the continental United States to a broad audience and at the same time presents an important case study of a critically endangered species.
Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Condors suffered from a variety of stresses--from shooting to strychnine poisoning that was an inadvertent side effect of campaigns to exterminate wolves and grizzly bears from California. Condors also faced dramatic declines in their food supply and progressively smaller foraging habitats. But as we are now coming to understand, the most important cause of their decline was lead poisoning caused by the ingestion of the ammunition fragments often present in its carrion food supply, especially in deer that were killed, but not recovered, by hunters. Noel and Helen Snyder delineate in clear fashion the myriad issues facing the Condor today and, looking to the future, convey a measure of hope that we may still achieve viable wild populations of this magnificent denizen of the California landscape.

Canoeing Michigan Rivers

California's Wild Heritage: Threatened and Endangered Animals in the Golden State