This stunning new Poyser title looks at the flora and fauna of Lapland - that area of northern Europe and northwestern Russia which lies within the Arctic circle. After general introductions, the book examines the Lapland ecosystems and species by habitat type, with one chapter dealing with freshwater habitats, another with open tundra and so on. The history of natural history study in the region, and the conservation issues affecting it today, are also discussed. The book is illustrated throughout with a wealth of the author's own colour photographs, and there are also some line drawings and a number of maps and other figures to illustrate key points. This is a wonderfully evocative book which creates a vivid sense of place for one of the planet's last wildernesses, and will appeal to anyone who loves wildlife and wild places. "A rare window onto one of Europe's most unspoiled areas, by the outstanding British field naturalist of the late 20th century." The Independent "An informative and easy-to-read text on a part of the natural world unfamiliar to many. It is a fascinating, enjoyable book." Wildlife Activist, Summer 2006 "Truly an excellent book, providing both pleasant reading as well as a fine work of reference...I would recommend anyone planning a trip to Lapland to read this book first, from cover to cover." Alula, 2007

Lapland : A Natural History

Science & Math

Derek Ratcliffe

Biological Sciences

Poyser

Birds of North East Africa (Field Guide to the Birds of)

Redman, Nigel

The Mascarene islands in the southern Indian Ocean - Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues - were once home to an extraordinary range of birds and reptiles. Evolving on these isolated volcanic islands in the absence of mammalian predators or competitors, the land was dominated by giant tortoises, parrots, skinks and geckos, burrowing boas, flightless rails & herons, and of course (in Mauritius) the Dodo. Uninhabited and only discovered in the 1500s, colonisation by European settlers in the 1600s led to dramatic changes in the ecology of the islands; the birds and tortoises were slaughtered indiscriminately while introduced rats, cats, pigs and monkeys destroyed their eggs, the once-extensive forests logged, and invasive introduced plants from all over the tropics devastated the ecosystem. The now-familiar icon of extinction, the Dodo, was gone from Mauritius within 50 years of human settlement, and over the next 150 years many of the Mascarenes' other native vertebrates followed suit. The product of over 30 years research by Anthony Cheke, Lost Land of the Dodo provides a comprehensive yet hugely enjoyable account of the story of the islands' changing ecology, interspersed with human stories, the islands' biogeographical anomalies, and much else. Many French publications, old and new, especially for Reunion, are discussed and referenced in English for the first time. The book is richly illustrated with maps and contemporary illustrations of the animals and their environment, many of which have rarely been reprinted before. Illustrated box texts look in detail at each extinct vertebrate species, while Julian Hume's superb colour plates bring many of the extinct birds to life. Lost Land of the Dodo provides the definitive account of this tragic yet remarkable fauna, and is a must-read for anyone interested in islands, their ecology and the history of our relationship with the world around us.

Lost Land of the Dodo

Anthony Cheke

Barn Swallow

Angela Turner

Bewick's Swan (Poyser Monographs)

Rees, Eileen

The Skylark's beautiful song, delivered from its famous towering songflight, can be heard from Ireland to Japan and from the Arctic Circle to the North African deserts. This volume opens with an overview of all the world's larks and, as well as a thorough account of the species biology, migratory patterns, behaviour and habitats, Paul Donald discusses the Skylark's role in history and folklore. This book is from the Poyser Monographs series. Regarded as essential reading by many ornithologists, the Monographs provide an enormous amount of detail on individual species, covering evolution, biology and ecology, breeding and feeding, distribution, and conservation.

Poyser Species Monograph: The Skylark

Donald, Paul

Between 1980 and 2004, more than 70 bird species - vagrants from Central Asia, Siberia and North America - have been added to the British list. This book is a compilation of all those records, with accounts of finding a 'First for Britain' interspersed with 25 annual summaries of the birding years 1980-2004 and 25 essays by prominent birders about their special years during this period. The book is illustrated with colour photographs and black and white artworks. Foreword by Eric Meek.

Birds New to Britain 1980-2004 (Poyser Monographs)

Pitches, Adrian & Cleeves, Tim

This book presents the most complete and up to date guide to the recognition of the diurnal raptors of Europe and the Middle East yet published.

The Raptors of Europe and the Middle East

DICK FORSMAN

Nature & Ecology

Birdwatchers' year,

Leo Batten

Seventy Years of Birdwatching is not truly an autobiography, there is too little about the author in it, though the personality of this exceptional, shy and gentle man comes through. This is a book about birdwatching, birdwatchers and, above all, birds. It is, in some measure, also a history of the development of modern ornithology in Britain -although the author's birdwatching extended over parts of three continents, Europe, India and North America. H. G. Alexander began birdwatching in earnest in 1898 and has never stopped. He has met or corresponded with most of the leading ornithologists of this century; his first article in British Birds appeared in 1909, and it may surprise many to discover how much of practical ornithology that is deliberated today was debated and practised so many years ago. During more than seventy years the author has witnessed important changes in resident and migrant bird populations in Britain. Dungeness, for example, was almost as uninhabited as the moon when he first knew it and Kentish Plovers bred there by the score, but Carrion Crows were a rarity. Over the years he saw the gradual decline of the Red-backed Shrike, Corncrake and Wryneckbut he was instrumental in bringing one bird to Britain, the hitherto 'undiscovered' Willow Tit which he, with others, helped to identify. Fifty years ago H. G. Alexander had already covered scores of six-inch Ordnance Survey maps with his mapping records and these, together with his notebooks and correspondence with contemporaries, supply an absorbing glimpse of a birdwatching era that was fascinatingly like and yet unlike our own. Perhaps this is why today's birdwatcher has only to turn the pages to be enthralled.

Seventy years of birdwatching

Alexander, Horace Gundry

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