The NHBS Conservation Hub – news, reviews and resources
The choice of new books in stock at NHBS this week is inspiring in its variety. Our favourite has to be the World Atlas of Mangroves. The detail in this inventory of biodiversity, habitat area, habitat loss and economic value for mangroves in 124 countries is extraordinary and we salute this beautifully produced feat of data collation. Highly recommended.
Browse the July NHBS Newsletter to see all the latest highlights.
1. Record bird and wildlife sounds in the fieldThe RememBird II allows you to record bird sound in the field. It fits snugly below your roof prism binoculars and is easily operated by a simple joystick button contol. The microphone works in a continuous loop recording mode so that your RememBird is ‘always listening’ – so you don’t have to scramble to catch the beginning of the calls you hear.
Each RememBird comes pre-loaded with a regional audio field guide: European (in English or French), North American or Australian.
4. Manage your wildlife field recordingsThe sophisticated software (available for PC and Mac users) allows you to manage your wildlife recordings, log and identify species heard and build your own audio field guides for use in the field.
Praise for Remembird I
For the size of the package, the RememBird provides a remarkably good recording (definitely adequate for identification later) and a convenient way of recording those valuable field notes. – American Bird Association
A marvelous innovation to take us into the next new frontier of birdwatching. – Martin Garner
Its versatility and ease of rapid use will make a real difference both for the professional and for the serious birder… You will quickly come to see how useful this is and will want to make sure it’s always to hand. – Ricard Gutiérrez, www.rarebirdspain.net
Is it worth it? Yes. It’s great for recording on-the-spot details of sightings while at the same time helping you to get to grips with bird sounds. – Dominic Couzens, BBC Wildlife Magazine
Designed 100% for birders, it would also be fantastic on safari, especially at night, for listening to the sounds of the bush. Elephants’ rumbles, bush baby shrieks and leopard coughs would all come through beautifully. – Wildlife Extra
Wired Magazine has a series of stunning close-up images of insect eyes from previous year’s entries of Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition.
My favourite image has to be the Klaus Bolte’s Tetse Fly (Glossina genus). Nikon also offer a daily ‘Identify the Image‘ challenge (I only got 3/5 today…).
2010 is the first year in NHBS’ 25 year history when there hasn’t been a large number of new field guides and avifaunas to pick from over the summer months. Just when we started worrying there wouldn’t be anything to get excited about all summer, along come two stunning books for birders:
Nightjars of the World: Frogmouths, Potoos, Oilbird and Owlet-nightjars by Nigel Cleere.This long awaited photographic guide covers the world’s 136 species of nightjar, pootoos, frogmouths, oilbirds and owlet-nightjars and features many never-before-published images, the latest taxonomy and distribution information. £44.99 | Hbk
A Birdwatching Guide to South-East Brazil by Juha Honkala and Seppo NiiranenThe site descriptions include information on some 50 excellent birdwatching sites throughout South-East Brazil with accurate directions on how-to-get-there, details of what to see and expect, plus important information on conditions. In addition, the book includes illustrations of 558 species.
The species accounts include all the detail necessary for field identification of the 471 species recorded in the Agulhas Negras area, in the heart of South-East Brazil, plus scientific and common names in English and Portuguese, size, voice descriptions, subspecies, habitat, distribution and status in the area. Each species is illustrated with a high quality, full colour photograph. Range maps show the birds’ distribution in Brazil. A comprehensive species list of South-East Brazil, bibliography and a list of useful addresses and websites completes the volume. Paperback | £28.99
Bird Observatories of the British Isles
The Golden Eagle (Poyser Monograph)
The incredibly popular Little Bug Locket is back in stock at NHBS. We struggled to keep up with demand so have over 500 in stock now.
Check out our full range of Children’s Wildlife Kit.
You will not have too much trouble spotting the new background image on The Hoopoe… these stunning eyes belong to the Red Eyed Tree Frog Agalychnis callidryas.
These beautiful frogs inhabit humid lowland and premontane forests distributed from Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula to Panama, including Costa Rica, where this photograph was taken by Carey James Balboa.
Costa Rica is the focus of today’s NHBS Country Guide – the latest books on the wildlife of Costa Rica.
This is the sister volume to Macdonald and Sillero-Zubiri’s landmark Biology and Conservation of Wild Canids. Macdonald and Loveridge draw together the world’s foremost experts on all 36 felid species to give a comprehensive account of felid conservation science, evolution and systematics, felid form and function, genetic applications, behavioural ecology, management of species that come into conflict with people and control of international trade in felid species, conservation tools/techniques, ex situ management, and felid diseases. You can also buy the two volumes in single set.
An indispensable foundation for theoretician and practitioner alike, it sets the agenda for the next decade of felid biology and conservation. The editors utilize their 50 years of combined experience in professional engagement with the behaviour and ecology of wild felids to draw together a unique network of the world’s most respected and knowledgeable experts. For the first time, this inter-disciplinary research programme is brought together within a single volume which portrays the unique attributes of the wild felids, describe their fascinating (and conflicting) relationship with humans, and create an unparalleled platform for future research and conservation measures.
A final chapter analyses the requirements of, and inter-disciplinary approaches to, practical conservation with cutting-edge examples of conservation science and action that go far beyond the cat family.
Over the past 20 years dramatic declines have taken place in UK insect populations. Eventually, such declines must have knock-on effects for other animals, especially high profile groups such as birds and mammals. This authoritative, yet accessible account details the current state of the wildlife in Britain and Ireland and offers an insight into the outlook for the future.
Written by a team of the country’s leading experts, it appraises the changes that have occurred in a wide range of wildlife species and their habitats and outlines urgent priorities for conservation. It includes chapters on each of the vertebrate and major invertebrate groups, with the insects covered in particular depth. Also considered are the factors that drive environmental change and the contribution at local and government level to national and international wildlife conservation. Essential reading for anyone who is interested in, and concerned about, UK wildlife.
With a foreword by Sir David Attenborough.
Over the past 20 years dramatic declines have taken place in UK insect populations. Eventually, such declines must have knock-on effects for other animals, especially high profile groups such as birds and mammals. This authoritative, yet accessible account details the current state of the wildlife in Britain and Ireland and offers an insight into the outlook for the future.
Written by a team of the country’s leading experts, it appraises the changes that have occurred in a wide range of wildlife species and their habitats and outlines urgent priorities for conservation. It includes chapters on each of the vertebrate and major invertebrate groups, with the insects covered in particular depth. Also considered are the factors that drive environmental change and the contribution at local and government level to national and international wildlife conservation. Essential reading for anyone who is interested in, and concerned about, UK wildlife.
With a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. Buy Silent Summer now from NHBS
Silent Summer is “like a Domesday Book of British Wildlife”, according to its editor, Professor Norman Maclean. In a foreword, Sir David Attenborough warns that “it is invaluable now and in the future it will be irreplaceable”. Will any real action be taken? Of course not. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s masterpiece, alerted the world in 1962 to the effects of agricultural pollutants such as DDT and in many ways launched today’s environmental movement. Silent Summer raises more complex and local questions. Terence Blacker, The Independent
Now, in an echo of that breakthrough publication, Sir David Attenborough has written the foreword to a new book, Silent Summer. Since Silent Spring we thought we had learnt a lot. But, as Sir David and 40 ecologists make clear, that is not so. Our wildlife is in retreat thanks to modern farming and the encroachment of urban life on the countryside. The Times
Published in 1962, Silent Spring helped launch the global environmental movement and, in Britain, prompted an eventual ban on pesticides such as DDT. Maclean believes, however, that such triumphs have done little to slow the destruction. “The evidence is that we could be in the middle of the next great extinction of wildlife, both globally and in Britain,” he said.
Butterflies are among the hardest hit of insect groups. Five species are extinct and, of the 59 that regularly breed in Britain, most have seen sharp declines in population. Jeremy Thomas, professor of ecology at Oxford University, who wrote Silent Summer’s chapter on butterflies, said populations were falling faster than almost any other group. The reason, he suggests, is that the caterpillars of many species need particular plant species to feed on — but these are often targeted by farmers as weeds. “Nearly every butterfly decline can be attributed to habitat loss or the degradation and increased isolation of surviving patches of habitat,” he said. Jonathan Leake in The Times
Perhaps what I’m excitedly photographing and noting today is the cliched ‘pale shadow’ of twenty years ago. I may be incredibly lucky in that I’m seeing something that in terms of biodiversity is equivalent to fifty or even a hundred years ago, but there’s no way of knowing. 10000birds.com
A new major environmental book, entitled Silent Summer: The State of Wildlife in Britain and Ireland, offers up disturbing facts and figures about the human impact on nature in the British Isles. Celebrated naturalist, broadcaster and national treasure Sir David Attenborough has penned the forward to the book, a collaborative effort by 40 UK ecologists, which outlines the impacts of pesticides, population growth and intensive farming on British and Irish flora and fauna. Greenfudge.com
Prof Maclean argues that “the evidence is that we could be in the middle of the next great extinction of wildlife, both globally and in Britain.” Nick Collins, The Telegraph
Buy Silent Summer now from NHBS
List of contributors; Foreword David Attenborough; Preface; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations;
1. Introduction Norman Maclean; Part I. Factors Driving Changes in Wildlife: 2. Climate change T. H. Sparks, C. D. Preston and D. B. Roy; 3. Agriculture, woodland and semi-natural habitats Ken Norris; 4. Vertebrate animal introductions Christopher Lever; 5. Plant introductions Andrew Lack; 6. Urbanisation and development Kevin J. Gaston and Karl L. Evans; 7. The great game: the interaction of field sports and conservation in Britain from the 1950s to 2008 Robin Sharp; 8. Going fishing: recent trends in recreational angling Robin Sharp and Norman Maclean; 9. Impacts of hormone disrupting chemicals on wildlife C. R. Tyler and R. M. Goodhead; 10. Water pollution: other aspects Michael Hughes and Carl Sayer; 11. 25 key questions in ecology Norman Maclean; Part II. Conservation in Action: 12. Conservation in action in Britain and Ireland Andy Clements; 13. Wildlife in the UK Overseas Territories Mike Pienkowski; 14. UK involvement in conservation outside UK territory N. Leader-Williams and A. M. Rosser; Part III. The Case Histories: 15. Mammals in the 20th century D. W. Yalden; 16. Bats Karen A. Haysom, Gareth Jones, Dan Merrett and Paul A. Racey; 17. State of bird populations in Britain and Ireland Robert A. Robinson; 18. The conservation of the Grey Partridge N. W. Sotherton, N. J. Aebischer and J. A. Ewald; 19. Reptiles Chris P. Gleed-Owen; 20. Amphibians Tim Halliday; 21. Freshwater fishes: a declining resource Peter S. Maitland and John F. Craig; 22. Riverflies Cyril Bennett and Warren Gilchrist; 23. Bumblebees Dave Goulson; 24. Butterflies J. A. Thomas; 25. Moths Richard Fox, Kelvin F. Conrad, Mark S. Parsons, Martin S. Warren and Ian P. Woiwod; 26. Dragonflies (Odonata) in Britain and Ireland Peter Mill, Steve Brooks and Adrian Parr; 27. Flies, beetles and bees, wasps and ants (Diptera, Coleoptera, and Aculeate Hymenoptera) Alan Stubbs; 28. Hemiptera Alan J. A. Stewart and Peter Kirby; 29. Grasshoppers, crickets and allied insects Judith Marshall; 30. Aerial insect biomass: trends from long-term monitoring Richard Harrington, Chris R. Shortall and Ian P. Woiwod; 31. Invertebrates Richard Chadd and Brian Eversham; 32. Land and freshwater molluscs Ian J. Killeen; 33. The sea shore S. J. Hawkins, H. E. Sugden, P. S. Moschella, N. Mieszkowska, R. C. Thompson and M. T. Burrows; 34. The offshore waters John Baxter; 35. Plants Andrew Lack; 36. Conclusion: what is the likely future for the wildlife in Britain and Ireland? Norman Maclean; Glossary; Index.
Norman Maclean is Emeritus Professor of Genetics at Southampton University and has a strong interest in wildlife, conservation and river management. He has helped to run student field courses for more than 20 years and has authored and edited more than a dozen textbooks and reference books in Genetics and Cell Biology. He is an Elected Fellow of the Linnaean Society and the Institute of Biology.
The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland is an authoritative account of our butterflies, accessibly written and beautifully illustrated. First published in 1991, it sold out in the early 1990s and was never reprinted.
The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland is an authoritative account of our butterflies, accessibly written and beautifully illustrated. First published in 1991, it sold out in the early 1990s and was never reprinted. This completely revised edition includes substantially revised species accounts, all including the latest information and research. Also contains nearly 100 new artworks painted by Richard Lewington.
Provides comprehensive coverage of all the resident and migratory butterflies found in Great Britain and Ireland, including the latest information on newly discovered species such as Real’s Wood White and the Geranium Bronze.