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.
“I wondered when I’d be seeing you, Mr. Potter.”
… was the line, delivered flawlessly by John Hurt in his memorable role as Garrick Ollivander in the first Harry Potter film, that passed through my mind as I drew a copy of “Europe’s Sea Mammals” out of the just-arrived parcel from Princeton University Press.
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.
The World’s Rarest Birds is not merely a collection of brilliant photographs; it is an exceptionally well-researched and written compendium of information about the state of the world’s birds, considered both regionally as well as specifically.