Animals That Fly And Birds That Don T

Engaging text describes animals that don't always do what the rest of their species do.

Updated for 2020, Engaging text describes animals that don't always do what the rest of their species do.

Engaging Text Describes Animals That Don't Always Do What The Rest Of Their Species Does.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SILVER MEDALIST for the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature From the bestselling author of H is for Hawk, a brilliant and insightful work about our relationship to the natural world Our world is a fascinating place, teeming not only with natural wonders that defy description, but complex interactions that create layers of meaning. Helen Macdonald is gifted with a special lens that seems to peer right through it all, and she shares her insights--at times startling, nostalgic, weighty, or simply entertaining--in this masterful collection of essays. From reflections on science fiction to the true story of an Iranian refugee's flight to the UK, Macdonald has a truly omnivorous taste when it comes to observations of both the banal and sublime. Peppered throughout are reminisces of her own life, from her strange childhood in an estate owned by the Theosophical Society to watching total eclipses of the sun, visits to Uzbek solar power plants, eccentric English country shows, and desert hunting camps in the Gulf States. These essays move from personal experiences into wider meditations about love and loss and how we build the world around us. Whether more journalistic in tone, or literary--even formally experimental--each piece is generous, lyrical, and speaks to one another. Macdonald creates a strong thematic undertow that quietly takes the reader along piece to piece and sets them down, finally, at a place they've never been before.

"On the Wing is the first book to take a comprehensive look at the evolution of flight in all four groups of powered flyers: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats."--Book jacket.

“Just astonishing . . . Our natural navigational capacities are no match for those of the supernavigators in this eye-opening book.”—Frans de Waal, The New York Times Book Review Publisher's note: Supernavigators was published in the UK under the title Incredible Journeys. Animals plainly know where they’re going, but how they know has remained a stubborn mystery—until now. Supernavigators is a globe-trotting voyage of discovery alongside astounding animals of every stripe: dung beetles that steer by the Milky Way, box jellyfish that can see above the water (with a few of their twenty-four eyes), sea turtles that sense Earth’s magnetic field, and many more. David Barrie consults animal behaviorists and Nobel Prize–winning scientists to catch us up on the cutting edge of animal intelligence—revealing these wonders in a whole new light.

Bring the wonder of flight down to Earth with clever papercrafts and some help from Fold & Fly Butterflies, Birds, and Other Animals that Fly. You'll create graceful, flying paper art with ease! Butterflies and birds and are among nature's most perfect flying machines. From Humankind's earliest days, we have marveled at the ease and majesty of flying creatures - envious of their ability to break gravity's bounds and soar. Fold & Fly Butterflies, Birds, and Other Animals that Fly celebrates and explains the miracle of natural flight, while providing readers with easy-to-follow patterns for creating Mother Earth's most amazing winged creatures. This box set includes a full-color book, over 140 sheets of custom-printed paper, and instructions for creating20 magnificent masters of flight. You will fold papercraft creatures of all kinds, from a prehistoric pterodactyl, to today's dragonfly, flying fish - and yes, even a stork - this set reaches new heights in paper art.

Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird is a comprehensive analysis of knowledge of animals among the Nage people of central Flores in Indonesia. Gregory Forth sheds light on the ongoing anthropological debate surrounding the categorization of animals in small-scale non-Western societies. Forth’s detailed discussion of how the Nage people conceptualize their relationship to the animal world covers the naming and classification of animals, their symbolic and practical use, and the ecology of central Flores and its change over the years. His study reveals the empirical basis of Nage classifications, which align surprisingly well with the taxonomies of modern biologists. It also shows how the Nage employ systems of symbolic and utilitarian classification distinct from their general taxonomy. A tremendous source of ethnographic detail, Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird is an important contribution to the fields of ethnobiology and cognitive anthropology.