Showing titles in Nature & Ecology

History is full of strange animal stories, invented by the brightest and most influential, from Aristotle to Disney, and they reveal as much about us and the things we believe as they do about the animals they misrepresent. We once thought that eels were born from sand, that swallows migrated to the moon, and that bears gave birth to formless lumps that were licked into shape by their mothers.

This audiobook is about connecting with nature and nature beings to help heal us and the earth. By communing and musing with nature, we learn how to speak to the spirit that lives in all things, bringing balance to us and the planet. By tapping into the feminine wisdom of the earth, we evoke a deep sense of belonging with the natural world and cultivate our inner landscape, planting the seeds for harmony and a natural state of joy.

Mammals you never knew existed will enter your world. Birds hidden in treetops will shed their cloak of anonymity. With a single movement of your hand you can make reptiles appear before you. Butterflies you never saw before will bring joy to every sunny day. Creatures of the darkness will enter your consciousness. And as you take on new techniques and a little new equipment, you will discover new creatures and, with them, new areas of yourself that had gone dormant. Once put to use, they wake up and start working again.

The sequel to the bestselling A Street Cat Named Bob continues the remarkable adventures of James and Bob showing - through new stories - how Bob's extraordinary street wisdom has shown James the meaning of friendship, loyalty, trust - and happiness. "Since Bob had appeared, I'd made huge strides in my life. For more than a decade I'd been a homeless drug addict. I'd been lost to the world and forgotten what was important in life. Now I'd got myself back on my two feet, but as I put the past behind me, I was still stepping unsteadily into the future."

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many fans, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the Earth's living matter - air, ocean, and land surfaces - forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.

From the secret fossils of London to the three-billion-year-old rocks of the Scottish Highlands, and from state-of-the-art Californian laboratories to one of the world's most dangerous volcanic complexes hidden beneath the green hills of western Naples, set out on an adventure to those parts of the world where the Earth's life-story is written into the landscape. Helen Gordon turns a novelist's eye on the extraordinary scientists who are piecing together this planetary drama.

Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends - and their amazing links to recent discoveries.

The diversity of life on earth is astounding, with each species perfectly adapted to its environment. Sharks can navigate the ocean using electromagnetic fields; sloths use algae as camouflage; albatross can fly for hours without beating their wings; and orca pods each have unique cultures and languages. But every hour, three species disappear. Our incredible world is at risk. Megan McCubbin reveals the stories of the scientists, rangers and conservationists who are fighting to save these extraordinary creatures from extinction.

Honeybees make decisions collectively-and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making.

From conducting farm animal caesarean sections in the early hours to missing family plans in order to treat critically injured pet dogs, no two days in the work of vet Guy Gordon and his team are ever the same. Based in Thurso, Northern Scotland, the small group of vets and their supporting staff cover a vast area of more than 1,000 square miles.

The Garden Jungle is about the wildlife that lives right under our noses, in our gardens and parks, between the gaps in the pavement and in the soil beneath our feet. Wherever you are right now, the chances are that there are worms, woodlice, centipedes, flies, silverfish, wasps, beetles, mice, shrews and much, much more, quietly living within just a few paces of you.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

From prehistoric cave paintings to the prints and etchings of Picasso, owls have captivated and inspired us for millennia. Whether they appear as ancient Athenian symbols of wisdom, ghostly harbingers of death, or the cuddly sidekicks of Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, these birds have continued to fascinate and disturb us in equal measure. Through revelatory new behavioural research, Jennifer Ackerman provides an intimate glimpse into these magnificent creatures' lives.

Hugh Tempest Sheringham was one of Britain's greatest - if not the world's greatest - fishing writers. From trout to carp and from pike to eels - yes, eels! - his love of both fish and fishing both delights and amuses as much today as it did in bygone times. Coarse Fishing is one of his best known works, and is recommended for both the keen angler and for the lover of the most genteel of British writing. If P.G. Wodehouse had been an angler, he would no doubt have spent many pleasant and amusing hours on the bank with Sheringham, and the world would have been the richer....

Jake Fiennes is on a mission to change the face of the English countryside. Mass farming, crop science and industrial chemicals have destroyed the majority of our natural landscape and wildlife over the last century. Land Healer is the story of Fiennes' ambition to bring back our flora and fauna—by reclaiming our traditions and trialling new experiments which could restore our symbiosis with our land, and save our shared future.

Look at the green organism across the room or through the window: the potted plant, or the grass, or a tree. Think how a life spent constantly growing yet rooted in a single spot comes with tremendous challenges. To meet them, plants have come up with some of the most creative methods for surviving of any living thing, us included. Many are so ingenious that they seem nearly impossible. There is no doubt that plants are important: plants, or their green precursors the blue-green algae and algae themselves, have produced all the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing animals to evolve.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Man Who Made Things out of Trees. Robert Penn cut down an ash tree to see how many things could be made from it. After all, ash is the tree we have made the greatest and most varied use of over the course of human history. Journeying from Wales across Europe and Ireland to the USA, Robert finds that the ancient skills and knowledge of the properties of ash are far from dead.

When Arjan Dwarshuis first heard of the “Big Year”—the legendary record for birdwatching—he was twenty years old, it was midnight, and he was sitting on the roof of a truck in the Andean Mountains. In that moment he promised himself that, someday, somehow, he would become a world-record-holding birder. Ten years later, he embarked on an incredible, arduous, and perilous journey that took him around the globe; over uninhabited islands, through dense unforgiving rainforests, across snowy mountain peaks and unrelenting deserts—in just a single year.

Since 2013, Tweet of the Day has been a daily delight for early risers, with its 90 seconds of beautiful birdsong and fascinating ornithological stories. But what of the people who tune in to this avian chorus? In this collection, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of an array of wildlife enthusiasts, all eager to recount their encounters with birds.

Bringing Back the Beaver is farmer-turned-ecologist Derek Gow’s inspirational and often riotously funny firsthand account of how the movement to rewild the British landscape with beavers has become the single most dramatic and subversive nature conservation act of the modern era. Since the early 1990s - in the face of outright opposition from government, landowning elites, and even some conservation professionals - Gow has imported, quarantined, and assisted the reestablishment of beavers in waterways across England and Scotland.