Hoopoe – A blog by nhbs

Some great new books about bee and ant societies have just swarmed into NHBS, including The Superorganism – Holldobler and Wilson’s in-depth analysis of insect societies, a follow-up to their acclaimed 1990 publication The Ants.

Don’t miss Six-Legged Soldiers, the compelling story of how insects have been used as weapons of war from prehistoric times right up to the Second World War and the near future.

Browse more new bee and ant colony titles

Check out our new range of homes for bugs and bees in your garden, including the Bee Hut, the Bumblebee Box and the Bug Mansion.

Browse Backlist Bargains – Invertebrates (Our annual sale ends 31 March 2009.)

Browse the full catalogue of Arthropods and Insects

In Built by Animals: The natural history of animal architecture Mike Hansell looks at the extraordinary structures that animals build – whether homes, traps, or courtship displays – and reveals the biology behind their behaviour. He shows how small-brained animals achieve complex feats in a small-brained way, by repeating many simple actions and using highly evolved self-secreted materials. On the other hand, the building feats or tool use of large-brained animals, such as humans or chimps, require significantly more complex and costly behaviour.

We look at wasp’s nests, leaf-cutting ants, caddisflies and amoebae, and even the extraordinary bower bird, who seduces his mate with a decorated pile of twigs, baubles, feathers and berries. Hansell explores how animal structures evolved over time, how insect societies emerge, how animals can alter their wider habitat, and even whether some animals have an aesthetic sense.

“Built by Animals is popular science at its best.” – Mark Cocker, The Guardian

“Hansell, an evolutionary biologist specialising in animal architecture, knows the answers and can tell a good story. Great stuff.” – Douglas Palmer, New Scientist

Built by Animals is now available in paperback – Order your copy today!

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Check out the great savings on more than 2500 wildlife, natural history and science titles – at up to 60% off – in our annual Backlist Bargains sale. (Sale ends 31 March 2009.)

We’re pleased to announce the arrival of Plant Taxonomy: The Systematic Evaluation of Comparative Data by Todd Stuessy – Professor and Chair of the Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany at the University of Vienna, Austria. He also serves as the Secretary-General of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.

The field of plant taxonomy has transformed rapidly over the past fifteen years, especially with regard to improvements in cladistic analysis and the use of new molecular data. The second edition of this popular resource reflects these far-reaching and dramatic changes by adding more than 3,000 new references and figures. Synthesizing current research and trends, this book now provides the most up-to-date overview of plant taxonomy in relation to monographic, biodiversity, and evolutionary studies, and continues to be an essential resource for students and scholars.

Order your copy of Plant Taxonomy today!

Browse more new botanical and taxonomy titles

Browse Botany and Zoology

Check out the great savings on botanical titles – up to 60% off – in our annual Backlist Bargains sale. (Sale ends 31 March 2009.)

There is one month left to take advantage of the great bargains in our Backlist Bargains sale!

We have added hundreds of great new titles from New Holland, Elsevier and Academic Press. Don’t miss the opportunity to purchase over 2600 titles at up to 60% off – the sale ends 31 March 2009.

Browse Backlist Bargains 2009 Bestsellers:
Zoology, Botany, Ornithology, Ecology/Conservation/Biodiversity, and Natural History/Travel

Browse the full Backlist Bargains catalogue

A Best Practice Guide for Wild Bird Monitoring Schemes is essential reading for all those involved in bird counts, conducting surveys, analysing monitoring data and managing results. This key resource outlines the general principles of good survey design and best practices for sampling, field methods, and data analysis. Contributors include the RSPB, EBCC, CSO, BirdLife International, and Statistics Netherlands.

Another new bird monitoring title is Bird Ringing: The Concise Guide, published by the BTO. This book is an ideal training tool for ringers, explaining how and why we ring birds. It contains numerous examples of how ringing has contributed to conservation science and research, and how ringing helps us understand population changes by providing information on survival and recruitment.

For more new titles and related equipment, browse New Bird Conservation Titles and Equipment

We stock a wide range of fieldwork equipment including bird weighing scales, ringing pliers, GPS units, and nest boxes and camera kits. To see our full selection, browse Wildlife Equipment

Browse our full range of Bird Conservation, Care, and Monitoring titles

Don’t miss the great deals on ornithology titles in our annual Backlist Bargains sale (ends 31/03/2009).

Browse our full range of birding titles in Ornithology

The eagerly awaited Helm Field Guide for Birds of Pakistan has now arrived at NHBS!

Pakistan has a rich diversity of bird habitats, from the dry alpine and moist temperate forests of the western Himalayas to the deserts of Baluchistan and Sind. The Indus basin, where some of the earliest human civilisations were founded, is extensively irrigated and cultivated, providing a variety of man-made habitats. This diversity of habitats supports a wide variety of bird species, and some 669 have been recorded. More than 60 per cent of the country – land lying to the west of the Indus river and south from Peshawar to the Arabian Sea coasts – is Palearctic in character, with a steppic dry montane habitat, and is very different from the rest of the Indian subcontinent.

Birds of Pakistan is a successor to the much acclaimed Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by two of the same authors. 93 superb plates are accompanied by a succinct text highlighting identification, voice, habitat, altitudinal range, distribution and status. Covers 670 species including all breeding species, regular visitors and vagrants. The text is on facing pages to the plates, for easy reference and there are distribution maps for every species.

Order your copy of Birds of Pakistan today!

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For more new birding titles, browse Birding Highlights

Browse our full range of birding titles in Ornithology

Here are some exciting new releases for February 2009 – all on special offer until 31 May 2009.

Nature of the Rainforest

Animal Migration

Plant Hunters

Darwin: For the Love of Science

To save on newly published titles, see Special Offers

Check out our annual Backlist Bargains sale for great savings on more than 2600 wildlife, environment and natural history titles (sale ends 31 March 2009)

We are pleased to announce these new additions to our popular Backlist Bargains sale – save up to 60% off list price!

Wild Costa Rica

Field Guide to the Mammals of South East Asia

The Private Life of Spiders

Orang-utans

Tigers

Check out our annual Backlist Bargains sale for great savings on more than 2600 wildlife, environment and natural history titles! (sale ends 31 March 2009)

Don’t miss our amazing special offer on the England’s Landscape books from English Heritage – these classic references are now 60% off! (sale ends 31 March 2009).

Regional titles in the England’s Landscape series include The North West, The North East, The West Midlands, The East Midlands, The West, The South West, East Anglia, and The South East.

Order now for big savings!

Several New Naturalist volumes are featured in our annual Backlist Bargains sale, including Garden Natural History, The Isles of Scilly and Britain’s Structure and Scenery.

Take advantage of these great deals before they disappear (sale ends 31 March 2009) – save up to 60% on more than 2600 wildlife, environment and natural history titles!

Browse our regional selections:
England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Don’t miss the new book A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir which tells the fascinating story of the American conservationist John Muir and his lasting influence on wilderness preservation.

A native of Scotland, John Muir moved to the United States as a young boy. He would become one of its greatest advocates for the natural environment, calling for the preservation of the Yosemite Valley, the Great Sequoia and coastal redwood groves, and other American wild places. Muir was an avid adventurer and mountaineer, walking from Indiana to Florida, exploring the Alaskan coast and climbing Mt. Rainier. During his time in Yosemite, he studied its geology and ecology, advocating new scientific theories about how the valley came to be through glacial melt and earthquakes.

In his later life he became well known as a preservation advocate and as a journalist, inspiring others to protect the environment, and established friendships with powerful and well-known figures of the day including Theodore Roosevelt and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a founder of the Sierra Club, which remains a powerful force in American conservation politics.

“I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer,” John Muir wrote. “Civilization and fever and all the morbidness that has been hooted at me has not dimmed my glacial eye, and I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness. My own special self is nothing.”

In Donald Worster’s magisterial biography, John Muir’s “special self” is fully explored as is his extraordinary ability, then and now, to get others to see the sacred beauty of the natural world. A Passion for Nature is the most complete account of the great conservationist ever written. It is the first to be based on Muir’s full private correspondence and to meet modern scholarly standards. Yet it is also full of rich detail and personal anecdote, uncovering the complex inner life behind the legend of the solitary mountain man.

Order your copy of A Passion for Nature today! (This book is on special offer until 30 April 2009.)

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