“Hummingbirds” takes its readers on an expertly guided, lavishly photo illustrated tour through the lives and biology of these remarkable little birds. Covering all 101 genera and over two-thirds of the 369 described species of hummingbirds, this is book that will certainly be of interest to all those interested in birds and to hummingbird enthusiasts in particular.
One of the many things I love about Great Britain is the combination of its remarkable number of natural habitats and their relative close proximity to one another. Even if time spent exploring is limited to a mere weekend, one can traverse multiple natural habitats and in the process be afforded the delights to be found observing the flora, fauna, geology, and geography each has to offer.
On my recent travels in England, just before making the pilgrimage to the BirdFair, I had the great good fortune of exploring the area around Radley Lakes with Jo Cartmell in search of Water Voles – or at least signs thereof. As the day warmed, the butterflies and dragonflies became more active, culminating in the opportunity to snap a photo (with merely my mobile phone camera, no less) of this exquisite Common Darter, Sympetrum striolatum, male as it basked on a barbed wire fence along the path.
At the recently concluded BirdFair, should you have popped in at the Princeton University Press stand you would have noticed two new additions to the Britain’s Wildlife series prominently featured: Britain’s Spiders and Britain’s Mammals. While the spider guide has yet to reach my desk, a copy of the one for mammals appeared just this past week.