A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds

Author: Scott Weidensaul
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393608913
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year An exhilarating exploration of the science and wonder of global bird migration. In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we’ve learned of these key migrations—how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis—is nothing short of extraordinary. Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela—the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest—avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth’s magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides—and their reaction time actually improves. These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges. Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.

Living on the Wind

Author: Scott Weidensaul
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780865475915
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
Scott Weidensaul follows hawks over the Mexican coastal plains, Bar-tailed Godwits that hitchhike on gale winds 7,000 miles nonstop across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, and the Myriad Songbirds whose numbers have dwindled so dramatically in recent years.

On the Wing

Author: David Elliott
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763693022
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33

Book Description
Explore a variety of birds in this illustrated educational introduction to birds.

Surgical Wing

Author: Kristin Robertson
Publisher: Alice James Books
ISBN: 1938584449
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 94

Book Description
“In Surgical Wing, you will find yourself in phone booths, county fairs, fishing boats, and among ghosts. Strange birds will enter hospital waiting rooms. You will be seduced by knot-makers. You will witness illness, grief, and healing. Finally, the book itself will become the wings that steer you to a greater understanding of yourself and the world.” —Anna Silver In Surgical Wing, surrealistic poems visit an experimental hospital ward, manifesting visions of winged angels and medical tests, as we bear witness to a doctor’s’ meddling and miracles. Robertson’s poems challenge the internal and external metamorphoses of the human condition and the juxtaposition between death and life by personifying the soul through images of birds. From “You’re About to Fold a Paper Airplane”: Build evidence of air. Pull the results of your blood test from the mailbox. Fold in half: you have wings already. Abnormal? Fold again. You can’t see the inner-workings of an aircraft. And when you’re folding, you can’t study much else. Book your tumor markers a flight to Bora Bora. Vector, Victor. Clearance, Clarence. On any scrap of paper write carry. Write heavenward. Write I choose this over you. Replace this. With flying. With peregrination. Or write I can’t fear you another morning. And fold. Kristin Robertson is a native of East Tennessee, and she graduated with a PhD in creative writing from Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Review, Indiana Review, TriQuarterly, Third Coast, and Verse Daily, among other journals. Kristin lives outside Los Angeles and teaches at the University of California, Riverside.

The Invention of Wings

Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698175247
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. Please note there is another digital edition available without Oprah’s notes. Go to Oprah.com/bookclub for more OBC 2.0 content

On the Wing

Author: Dr. David E. Alexander
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199996776
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
"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.

Vesper Flights

Author: Helen Macdonald
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802146694
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
The New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this “dazzling” essay collection (Wall Street Journal). In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.

Take Wing and Fly Here

Author: Priyanka Kumar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781890932442
Category : Bird watching
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
J.K. is juggling a Big Year race - to see the most number of bird species in L.A. County in one year - with trying to complete a doctorate in physics. Rick, the president of the bird society, is nipping at J.K.'s heels in the Big Year count, always just two or three bird sightings behind him. As Trip Chair, J.K. is also under pressure to organize birding trips for the society. A Big Year is a "race against time," and as the year unfolds, J.K. finds it harder to concentrate on the last important paper he needs to publish to get his Ph.D. Yet he desires a postdoctoral position at Princeton, which would also keep his East-Coast girlfriend Anne Marie happy. With the Alpena Bird Society near bankruptcy as it stumbles into its Centennial year, and its members interested only in gawking at birds, Hospitality Queen Karen decides that the senseless killing of cowbirds in Joss Canyon, Alpena's last remaining wild land, must stop. Karen starts out with the bird society as an outlet for her ten-year-old son who has a birding mania, but as the novel progresses she's more and more frustrated by the society's lackadaisical approach to its Centennial and to bird conservation. That J.K.'s girlfriend is not a birder hasn't been a big problem so far, but as the Big Year draws to a close, the stresses on their relationship begin to show. J.K. counts on his physics supervisor to mentor his postdoctoral search, but his job prospects grow bleak. Rick's problem is that his wife Meg is suspicious of Karen's interest in Rick and jealous of the time he spends Big Year birding. Rick spends much energy on Machiavellian ruminations about how to indulge his passion for the Big Year while placating Meg. Karen does have a special fondness for Rick, but she's busy saving the cowbirds in Joss Canyon, which is now threatened by developers. Meanwhile J.K.'s "safety net" begins to dismantle until he discovers that he doesn't have the support structure to achieve the success he'd hoped for. Disappointed, J.K. retreats to the mountains. But he has one last promise to keep - to attend the bird society's Centennial.

How to Heal a Broken Wing

Author: Bob Graham
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536220922
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Book Description
“Such a visual piece . . . readers young and old will return to the story to look more deeply; they won’t be disappointed.” — Booklist (starred review) In a city full of hurried people, only young Will notices the bird lying hurt on the ground. With the help of his sympathetic mother, he gently wraps the injured bird and takes it home. Wistful and uplifting in true Bob Graham fashion, here is a tale of possibility — and of the souls who never doubt its power.

The Wing on a Flea

Author: Ed Emberley
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 9780316234870
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 50

Book Description
Simple rhyming text and illustrations guide the reader to see triangles, rectangles, and circles in everyday things.