Falcon

Author: Helen Macdonald
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780236891
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
Before best-selling author Helen Macdonald told the story of the goshawk in H Is for Hawk, she told the story of the falcon, in a cultural history of the masterful creature that can “cut the sky in two” with the “perfectly aerodynamic profile of a raindrop,” as she so incisively puts it. In talon-sharp prose she explores the spell the falcon has had over her and, by extension, all of us, whether we’ve seen them “through binoculars, framed on gallery walls, versified by poets, flown as hunting birds, through Manhattan windows, sewn on flags, stamped on badges, or winnowing through the clouds over abandoned arctic radar stations.” Macdonald dives through centuries and careens around the globe to tell the story of the falcon as it has flown in the wild skies of the natural world and those of our imagination. Mixing history, myth, and legend, she explores the long history of the sport of falconry in many human cultures—from Japan to Abu Dhabi to Oxford; she analyzes the falcon’s talismanic power as a symbol in art, politics, and business; and she addresses the ways we have both endangered and protected it. Along the way we discover how falcons were mobilized in secret military projects; their links with espionage, the Third Reich, the Holy Roman Empire, and space programs; and how they have figured in countless stories of heroism and, of course, the erotic. Best of all, Macdonald has given us something fresh: a new introduction that draws on all her experience to even further invigorate her cherished subject. The result is a deeply informed book written with the same astonishing lyrical grace that has captivated readers and had everyone talking about this writer-cum-falconer.

ThePeregrine Falcon

Author: Derek Ratcliffe
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408136848
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Book Description
The first edition of The Peregrine Falcon was widely recognised as a classic of its kind, documenting not only the species' biology but also the sad tale of its decline due to the impact of pesticides. This extensively revised and enlarged second edition takes full account of important new developments in the story of this bird during the intervening 12 years. It reports one of the few notable successes in wildlife conservation: the full restoration of British and Irish Peregrine populations, and their appreciable recovery in other countries where numbers had also been greatly reduced by the impact of organochlorine pesticides. The pattern of increase in Britain has been extremely varied, from districts where numbers are now far higher than at any time in recorded history, to others where the bird is now at its lowest ebb. The examination of the reasons for these differences helps us to understand the most recent developments in the Peregrine saga. Particular attention has been paid to the recent major advances in our knowledge of Peregrine biology, such as its movements, population turnover, food and nesting habits. Many of the tables and figures have been revised and brought up to date so that this volume, like its predecessor, is once again by far the most detailed and readable reference on this most evocative of birds. Donald Watson's colour paintings, monochrome washes and line drawings, and the original photographs, illustrate the book as before. Cover illustration by Donald Watson

The Falcon Thief

Author: Joshua Hammer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 150119190X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
A “well-written, engaging detective story” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs—and the wildlife detective determined to stop him. On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were fourteen rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a “vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do” (Publishers Weekly), following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions—and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey. “Masterfully constructed” (The New York Times) and “entertaining and illuminating” (The Washington Post), The Falcon Thief will whisk you away from the volcanoes of Patagonia to Zimbabwe’s Matobo National Park, and from the frigid tundra near the Arctic Circle to luxurious aviaries in the deserts of Dubai, all in pursuit of a man who is reckless, arrogant, and gripped by a destructive compulsion to make the most beautiful creatures in nature his own. It’s a story that’s part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page.

Falcon in the Glass

Author: Susan Fletcher
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442429917
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
"Eleven-year-old Renzo must teach himself to blow glass with the help of a girl who has a mysterious connection to her falcon"--

Millennium Falcon

Author: Ryder Windham
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545210380
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 24

Book Description
A tribute to the favorite "Star Wars" ship provides layer-by-layer analyses of the Millennium Falcon's features, from laser cannons and cockpit controls to smuggling bays and Han Solo's speed modifications. On board pages.

Frightful's Mountain

Author: Jean Craighead George
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593693523
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
Frightful, the pelegrine falcon, could not see. A falconer's hood covered her head and eyes. She remained quiet and clam, like all daytime birds in the dark. She would hear, however. She listened t the wind whistling through the pine needles. The wind-music conjured up images of a strange woods and unknown flowers. The sound was foreign. It was not the soft song of wind humming through the hemlock needles of home. Frightful was a long way from her familiar forest. Suddenly an all-invading passion filled her. She must go. She must find one mountain among thousands, one hemlock tree among millions,. And the one boy who called himself Sam Gribley. The one mountain was her territory, the one tree was Sam's house, the perch beside it, her place. And Sam Gribley was life.So begins the third book in the wilderness series that has lifted imaginations around the worlds. Readers last head from Sam Gribley a decade ago , when he kept the hardest resolution of his life and let his falcon partner go free. Now at last we pick up the sotry?but this time, the narrative continues through Frightful's keen-sighted eyes.Raised by Sam, Frightful is an imprinted bird. She has no idea how to migrate, mate, or be a mother. She can barely even feed herself, for although she is a skilled hunter, it was always Sam who signaled permission to partake of the kill. Sam, so patient and kind, will support her from afar, and so will bird activists Jon and Susan wood and conservationist Leon Longbridge. But despite a letter-writing campaign by local schoolchildren, other would despoil her Catskill home?designing fatal electrical wires and disturbing good nesting areas with jackhammers and paint trucks.With evolution and a proud natural intelligence on her side, Frightful may yet beat the odds of famine, winter, and human encroachment. But her terrible longing for that one mountain among thousands, her first home?a longing so noble and generous yet so dangerous?will govern her to either heartbreaking failure or hart-aching triumph, a triumph so right and so natural that readers will want to take to the skies in celebration.Jean Craighead George published My Side of the mountain in 1959, a Newbery Honor Book and coming-of-age story that has enthralled and entertained generations of would-be Sams. This third book in the series shares?in exquisite, elegantly flowing prose?Frightful's own passage into adulthood, taking readers on a journey into the mind and spirit of one of the wild's most magnificent creations and proving once again why the author is considered the most gifted nature writer of her time.

Maggie the One-Eyed Peregrine Falcon

Author: Christie Gove-Berg
Publisher: Adventure Publications
ISBN: 1591936306
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33

Book Description
Maggie has just learned to fly when she crashes into the side of a building. She falls to the ground, alone and injured. Who will help her? As told with real photographs, this true story explains how wildlife hospitals rescue and treat injured animals. Their goal is to release the animals back into the wild. Sometimes, this isn't possible--but there can still be a happy ending. Maggie's story, written by Christie Gove-Berg, is just such a success!

The Wandering Falcon

Author: Jamil Ahmad
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 0670085332
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
The boy known as Tor Baz—the black falcon —wanders between tribes. He meets men who fight under different flags, and women who risk everything if they break their society’s code of honour. Where has he come from, and where will destiny take him? Set in the decades before the rise of the Taliban, Jamil Ahmad’s stunning debut takes us to the essence of human life in the forbidden areas where the borders of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet. Today the ‘tribal areas’ are often spoken about as a remote region, a hotbed of conspiracies, drone attacks and conflict. In The Wandering Falcon, this highly traditional, honour-bound culture is revealed from the inside for the first time. With rare tenderness and perception, Jamil Ahmad describes a world of custom and cruelty, of love and gentleness, of hardship and survival; a fragile, unforgiving world that is changing as modern forces make themselves known. With the fate-defying story of Tor Baz, he has written an unforgettable novel of insight, compassion and timeless wisdom. It is true, I am neither a Mahsud nor a Wazir. But I can tell you as little about who I am as I can about who I shall be. Think of Tor Baz as your hunting falcon. That should be enough.

Peregrine Falcons of the World

Author: Clayton M. White
Publisher: Lynx Edicions
ISBN: 9788496553927
Category : Birds
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"Perhaps beginning near the end of the Pleistocene, Peregrines began to acquire a vast cosmopolitan distribution, and set the stage for fascinating structural, behavioral, and population distinctions related to where they lived. Those divergences were driven by the various demands of landscapes as different as one can find on earth, including Greenland tundra, South Pacific islands, Utah arid scrublands, the cold wind-swept Aleutians, and warm, moist Indonesian forests. Modern Peregrines reveal that geographic isolation may befall even a creature renowned for great speed and mobility. Peregrine Falcons of the World brings together the lifetime experiences of the authors with this splendid falcon in the field and in museums, hundreds of personal accounts by Peregrine observers worldwide, a vast literature on this falcon which is surely among the best-studied birds, scores of superb photographic images so generously supplied, and the matchless art of Andrew Ellis. The goal is to provide a feel for how Peregrines have responded to their varied world, and to earmark the many gaps in what we know. Oddly, Peregrines have not colonized many places, where by any reckoning, they should be. In recent times, roughly twenty subspecies of Peregrines were described. The historical reasons for these designations, and our current analyses are provided here. Some populations are very distinct in form and color, but sometimes they geographically overlap and intergrades appear. Each subspecies account also describes distribution, hunting and nesting habitats, migration and wintering ranges, estimated population sizes, and conservation aspects. In the end, present day Peregrines appear in at least a score of populations experiencing different degrees of isolation and enjoying different rates of divergence. The challenge of understanding their relationships is sometimes made greater by almost complete lack of information or specimens from vast regions where neighboring subspecies apparently come together because no obvious barrier exists. But the Peregrine Falcon will never lack for serious aficionados. Field people around the world add to the growing literature almost weekly so that someday a more complete appreciation is inevitable." --Publisher's description.

A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner

Author: Edwin James
Publisher: Franklin Classics
ISBN: 9780342113873
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.