Books – Page 13 – Hoopoe

Author Interview with Roy Dennis: Mistletoe Winter

Mistletoe Winter is a collection of essays on our environment, covering biodiversity, habitat conservation, rewilding and individual species.

Similarly to his companion volume, Cottongrass Summer, author Roy Dennis expresses his alarm at the crisis currently confronting the natural world while balancing this with his sense of optimism about the younger generations and their fight for the crucial changes needed for the future. Drawing from his considerable experience of working in nature conservation, his essays are full of insight and originality, providing inspiration and ideas for everyone who cares about our planet and its species.

Roy Dennis has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions for us below.

Mistletoe Winter and its companion Cottongrass Summer are collections of essays on our environment and the challenges it faces. How did you find the response to your first collection and what motivated you to write this one?

I received such a lovely response to Cottongrass Summer from so many people, and such encouraging reviews, that I wanted to cover a range of other nature topics in a similar way. People remarked that they liked the storytelling way of explaining some of the real issues to do with nature in our ever-changing world and this allowed me to cover some bigger ideas in Mistletoe Winter.

In your essay ‘Deep snow, predators and prey’ you noted how the choice of language and terminology may have an impact on the rate at which the general public learns about environmental crises. Could you talk a little bit more about this here?

I was talking about the fact that there is so much excellent science being done on wildlife and ecological issues, but so much is ‘hidden’ to ordinary folk because it is in scientific journals, some of which are not open access, and often written in a formulaic way. We need much better availability of the results written by the scientists involved in plain language, which everyone can understand.

What do you think are the most important and urgent steps that we need to take in the UK to protect our wildlife and endangered species, such as the lapwing?

The most important step is to raise ecological recovery to much higher levels. I would compare it to the major recognition of timber shortages at the end of the First World War, which created the Forestry Commission; and the shortage of food in the Second World War, which created a much enhanced Agriculture Department. In the present crises, we need greatly expanded Nature Recovery government departments with really substantial budgets to restore nature. I’d recommended that 50% of our land and seas is principally for ecological restoration, and budgets need to be in line with the £45 billion we spend on military defence.

You mention young people’s role and engagement in the fight against climate change, as well as your own childhood experiences with nature. How do you think we can best encourage environmental awareness in young people?

I think young people are often fully aware of the climate and biodiversity crises – in fact, more so than their parents. The important step forward is for older people to recognise their worries and do something about it – urgently – for it’s the young that will have to suffer the consequences of our inaction.

Mistletoe Winter will be your second book published in 2021, following the
brilliant Restoring the Wild, published earlier this year. Do you have plans for any further books or other exciting projects?

Yes, I have a couple of interesting book ideas I’m mulling over, and we have wildlife projects we wish to carry out – but I’m a great believer in working up ideas quietly without fanfare and then getting on with them.

Author Interview with Stephen Littlewood: Wild Mull

Wild Mull: A Natural History of the Island and its People guides the reader through the world of the Isle of Mull in its glory, considering every facet of the island’s natural history, diverse species and stories of past, present and future.

Mull is a seaborne landscape off the west coast of Scotland, displaying uncommon biodiversity and full of rare wildlife experiences, but today it faces some of its greatest challenges. With superb illustrations and illuminating text, Wild Mull is testimony to the power of wild places and the duty we have to protect and learn from them.

Stephen Littlewood kindly agreed to answer some of our questions below.

Mull mountainscape across Loch na Keal by Martin Jones

Could you tell us what inspired you to write this natural history of the Isle of Mull and its people?

We live in an era when wildlife is being pushed more and more into the margins, and many people are starved of the experience and understanding of wild places. In this context, there is a consensus that Mull is formidably equipped to display a concentration of land and marine species that is very rare today. It is also a relatively accessible destination. Consequently, the island and its surroundings have become significant attractions for a burgeoning population of wildlife tourists and, it must be said, for the tourism industry which has prospered on the back of a fascination with the so-called ‘wild’. Today, Mull’s reputation for delivering outstanding and intimate associations with many iconic British species draws people from far and wide. However, until now there has been no single resource that explains how Mull came to this position, or what it is about its aggregation of species and habitats that makes it so outstanding. I felt that it was high time to rectify that, but in doing so it was important to address some of the questions that are often overlooked during the pursuit of the profound pleasure to be gained from embracing nature in cherished land and seascapes. The book was always intended to be as much a history, an explanation and an exploration of this special place, as it was a guide to its species and habitats.

Visitors typically arrive on Mull with a wish-list of species to see. That list is invariably topped by eagles (white-tailed and golden), otters, puffins, and cetaceans. What people tend to be less appreciative of, or often not at all interested in, is the backstory both to these species and of the multitude of supporting flora and fauna. All of them are equally beautiful and extraordinary in different ways, and it is the sum of their parts that enables the headline species to thrive. I wanted to encourage the reader to explore as much of Mull’s complex biodiversity as possible, whilst also explaining how, in such an apparently injury-free landscape, it is constantly under pressure and subject to continual interventions by people, in the same way as anywhere else. To do so the book had to be factual but at the same time attractive and not overbearing. This meant that it would have to deliver a visual thrill; to make all of it, even the smallest elements, tangible and exciting. I also knew that Martin could sprinkle that magic, embroider the broad design concept, and embellish the text with the kind of high-quality photo images that would prove irresistible to the potential readership. He has done this wonderfully well.

You mention that human intervention has had a profound effect on Mull. Could you tell us a little more about the historical relationship between humans and the environment on the island?

Mull’s environment isn’t perfect, or unblemished. Most of that is down to the fact that people have been surviving on, profiting from, and ‘improving’ it for 10,000 years. If we were going to tell an honest story of the island’s natural history, it had to include the role of people, for better or worse, in shaping it. To begin with, I thought that this would be a tale largely of land use, of subsistence arable farming, grazing by domestic animals, wholesale planting and harvesting of cash-crop conifer plantations and so on. Of course, these are significant elements in the story, but only when I started to examine the historical record did I realise the extent to which species have been manipulated, consciously and unconsciously, by human interventions that have fundamentally impacted the flora and fauna over time. The picture of what we think of as a natural biodiversity, not only on Mull, isn’t necessarily as we perceive it. An extraordinary proportion of our flora and fauna has been introduced, exterminated, or tampered with. What I find interesting is that each time these actions have occurred they have been judged by the social, moral or economic expediency of the age. Today, we may feel confident that we know the right and wrong ways of addressing biodiversity issues, but one wonders if future generations will have a different perspective again.

The pine marten is flourishing on Mull, which is considered by some to be a success story, given their critical status in England and Wales. However, you highlight their potential negative impact on many of Mull’s endangered bird species. How does Mull plan to tackle this conservation conundrum?

In short, Mull doesn’t plan to tackle it at all nor, I think, is it a topic that is widely discussed. The pine marten is a very recent arrival on the island, and although it was not ‘formally’ introduced, it is generally accepted that it is here to stay. Its presence is mostly felt by the inhabitants to be desirable, so hopefully, its impact upon other species will not be to drive them beyond sustainable populations. Its role as a new predator does raise interesting questions, however. It is certainly thriving, but nobody is monitoring the impact of its reintroduction, nor the size of its population. It is a protected species in Scotland, so, therefore, cannot be deliberately trapped, whilst at the same time, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) have said that, because its introduction was never officially sanctioned, if it is accidentally caught in mink traps, for example, it should be removed from the island as an illegal immigrant and liberated elsewhere. We don’t really know if its migration is good or bad for Mull’s wildlife, and we don’t have any inclination to find out. I find this a confused response and a fascinating conundrum in the light of current approaches to the restoration of our damaged environments.

Pine Marten, an ‘accidental’ introducation by Nathen Steggles Briggs

Tourism, particularly ecotourism, contributes a large proportion of the island’s economy. However, negative aspects of ecotourism, such as overuse of areas, can lead to environmental damage. What measures are being taken to keep tourism sustainable?

Ecotourism is probably now the largest contributor to the economy of Mull, but again this isn’t a question that is really generating much deliberation about the future or consideration of potential interventions. There are parking issues, particularly in the centre of Tobermory, which have been the subject of debate and are likely to result in the community and local authority trialling solutions to excess traffic in urban areas. However, in terms of ameliorating traffic growth on the roads, the impact of ‘wild’ camping, or the increasing pressures on species such as puffins and otters by wildlife photographers and so on, there is little formal debate and very little coming forward by way of attempts to make tourism more sustainable to protect the environment. It was interesting, whilst writing the book, to reflect upon the significant behavioural responses of wildlife during the Covid-19 lockdowns. There were many discernible changes, both as a response to restrictions upon tourism and the subsequent lifting of those restrictions.

Do you have any future projects planned that you can tell us about?

Mull could be likened to an accessible ‘mini laboratory’ with the potential to explore many environmental issues which are being played out on a much bigger stage. I would like to use the prism of Mull to address some of the big questions that arose in writing the book, although unpacking and making sense of the many wicked issues that come to mind is a complex and hazard-strewn path which would be a wholly different kind of journey. In the meantime, perhaps Martin and I will further develop some of the core themes of this book, which continue to fascinate and engage an ever-increasing number of interested individuals.

Wild Mull: A Natural History of the Island and its People
Stephen Littlewood (Author) and Martin Jones (Photographer) | October 2021

September Top 10

NHBS’s Top 10 bestsellers September 2021

We love looking back at our bestsellers from the month before and are very excited to share our Top 10 list for September.

This month, our bestsellers include exciting new works such as Europe’s Birds and Habitats of the World, as well as several ever-popular titles you may recognise from previous Top 10s, such as Secrets of a Devon Wood and Britain’s Insects.

Europe’s Birds: An Identification Guide | Andy Swash et al
Hardback | August 2021

In top place this month is WILDGuides latest book Europe’s Birds. Covering more than 900 species and illustrated with over 4,700 photographs, this is the most comprehensive, authoritative and ambitious single-volume photographic guide to Europe’s birds ever produced. Birdwatchers of any ability will benefit from the clear text; details on range, status and habitat; and an unrivalled selection of photographs.

Collins Birds of the World: All 10,711 Species Illustrated | Norman Arlott et al
Hardback | September 2021

Collins Birds of the World is the complete collection of the Collins Field Guide‘s incredibly detailed, accurate and beautiful bird paintings, brought together for the first time in one comprehensive volume. All 10,711 of the world’s bird species are covered – this is the ultimate reference book for birdwatchers and bird enthusiasts.

Read our interview with Norman Arlott.

Bat Calls of Britain and Europe: A Guide to Species Identification| Jon Ross et al
Hardback | August 2021

Bat Calls of Britain and Europe is a comprehensive guide to the calls of the 44 species of bat currently known to occur in Europe, drawing on the expertise of more than 40 specialist authors. Aimed at volunteers and professionals alike, topics include the basics of sound, echolocation in bats, an introduction to acoustic communication and call analysis. Detailed information is provided for each species on their distribution, emergence, flight and foraging behaviour, habitat, echolocation calls – including parameters of common measurements – and social calls.

Secrets of a Devon Wood: My Nature Journal | Jo Brown
Hardback | October 2020

Secrets of a Devon Wood is a hymn to the intricate beauty of the natural world. Artist and illustrator Jo Brown started keeping her nature diary in a bid to document the small wonders of the wood behind her home in Devon. This book is an exact replica of her original black Moleskin journal, a rich illustrated memory of Jo’s discoveries in the order in which she found them.

Jo very kindly agreed to answer some of our questions for a Q&A. Read the full interview here.

The Handbook of Acoustic Bat Detection | Volker Runkel
Paperback | September 2021

A recent release, The Handbook of Acoustic Bat Detection provides an in-depth understanding of acoustic detection principles, study planning, data handling, properties of bat calls, manual identification of species, automatic species recognition, analysis of results, quality assurance and the background physics of sound.

Read our interview with the authors.

British Craneflies | Alan Stubbs
Hardback | July 2021

British Craneflies is a guide to the identification and natural history of 250 species in six families of cranefly. It describes the distribution and habitat of each one, with 128 pages of identification keys illustrated with thumbnail drawings and colour plates showing the wing venation and markings of 180 species. This guide also contains photograph examples of some distinctive and common craneflies, illustrations of the male genitalia for all species of Tipulidae and for most genera of other families, and introductory chapters including a full account of the enemies of craneflies.

Britain’s insects: A Field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland | Paul D. brock
Flexibound | May 2021

Britain’s Insects makes the Top 10 list again this month! This field guide is an innovative, up-to-date, carefully designed and beautifully-illustrated field guide to Britain and Ireland’s 25 insect orders, concentrating on popular groups and species that can be identified in the field.

Featuring superb photographs of live insects, Britain’s Insects covers the key aspects of identification and provides information on status, distribution, seasonality, habitat, food plants and behaviour.

Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse | Dave Goulson
Hardback | August 2021

Silent Earth is part love letter to the insect world, part elegy, and part rousing manifesto for a greener planet. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime of study, Silent Earth reveals the shocking decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Read our extended review.

British Moths: A Gateway Guide | James Lowen
Spiralbound | September 2021

British Moths is a wonderful introduction to 350 species of the most common and eye-catching adult moths that you may encounter in the UK. Concise species accounts include information on key features, seasonality, and when and where to see them. Each account is also placed alongside photos that have been carefully chosen to aid identification with clearly marked top tips.

Habitats of the World: A Field Guide for Birders, Naturalists, and Ecologists | Iain D Campbell Et al
Flexibound | September 2021

Habitats of the World is the first field guide to the world’s major land habitats – 189 in all. Using the format of a natural history field guide, this comprehensive book features concise identification descriptions and is richly illustrated, including more than 650 colour photographs of habitats and their wildlife, 150 distribution maps, 200 diagrams and 150 silhouettes depicting each habitat alongside a human figure, providing an immediate grasp of its look and scale.

Geoffrey Kibby: Publisher of the Month

With the recent arrival of Autumn, the fungi season is now upon us. And so, NHBS is delighted to announce Geoffrey Kibby as our Publisher of the Month for October.

Geoffrey Kibby is one of Britain’s foremost experts on identifying mushrooms in the field, and his privately published books on how to identify British mushrooms pass on many of those skills. Kibby’s user-friendly books contain an enormous amount of information, are fully illustrated and are aimed at everyone, from the fungi enthusiast to the expert mycologist. The wealth of detail includes vital features to look for when identifying wild mushrooms and the important identification characteristics when using a microscope, often an essential tool in mycology.

These books are also an essential guide to identifying edible mushrooms and are valuable handbooks when mushrooming anywhere in western Europe.

We asked Geoffrey to tell us about how he originally became interested in mycology, and what he hopes to achieve with his wonderful books:

I was 13 when I first became aware of fungi: an intensely violet toadstool, unlike anything I had ever seen (Laccaria amethystina) and from that moment, I was hooked. I bought my first little mushroom guide, then another and another and more through the years until my bookshelves started to groan under the weight of books about fungi. Now, more than 50 years later, I am writing my own books, trying to produce the sort of works that I would have wanted as an aspiring young mycologist. My books are based on my years in the field, hopefully capturing the essence of each species. I have also made a conscious point of illustrating species not readily available in other guides and trying to give the most up-to-date names in what is an ever-changing science. Mycology is an inexhaustible field of study at whatever level your interest lies. With over 4000 species of larger fungi in Britain, you will never run out of species to find or new facts to discover.

Browse Geoffrey Kibby’s entire range below, including the fantastic Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain & Europe series.

Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain & Europe, Volume 3: Agarics, Part 2
Hardback | £41.99

Volume 3 is the second to cover agarics in which over 680 common and rare species are covered, containing photographs and paintings to highlight important characteristics, including microscopic features.

Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain & Europe, Volume 2: Agarics, Part 1
Hardback | £41.99

A total of 750 species and varieties illustrated with a key to major groups, dealing with the mainly white-spored agarics. The introduction to each section includes photographs, as well as useful illustrative paintings to highlight important characters that are sometimes difficult to ascertain from a photograph.

Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain & Europe, Volume 1

Hardback | £44.99

Volume 1 illustrates the non-agarics, including puffballs, stinkhorns, earthstars, coral fungi, polypores, crust fungi, chanterelles, tooth fungi, boletes, Russula and Lactarius. A total of 650 species are illustrated via watercolour paintings, along with drawings of the spores and other useful microscopic features.

British Boletes: With Keys to Species
Spiralbound | £22.99

Boletes are some of the most popular fungi around the world, both because they are often choice edibles and because of their frequently exotic colours and large size. There are approximately 80 species in Britain and British Boletes provides user-friendly identification keys and descriptions to all the known species, along with colour photos of the majority of species.

British Milkcaps: Lactarius & Lactifluus
Spiralbound | £22.50

The Milkcaps, the species of Lactarius and Lactifluus, are a popular group of fungi distributed throughout the world and with over 70 species in Britain. This guide presents colour photographs of all these species, many with highly detailed photos of their spores, readily accessible keys and up-to-date information on their distribution and ecology.

The Genus Russula in Great Britain: With Synoptic Keys of Species
Spiralbound | £26.99

This guide provides an easy-to-use keying system to identify the nearly 160 species of the genus Russula found in Great Britain. Each species is fully described, including a further 29 from Continental Europe and Scandinavia that have not yet been found here but might be expected to, with over 120 full-colour photographs provided.

The Genus Agaricus in Britain
Paperback | £19.99

This guide describes all of the known British species in the genus Agaricus and provides easy to use synoptic/pictorial keys to the species and includes over 50 photographs illustrating the majority of British species

The Genus Amanita in Great Britain
Paperback | £19.99

This guide presents a broad view of the British species in the genus Amanita, plus some extra-limital species that might be found here. It contains photographs of many of the commoner species and some of the rarer and more obscure species that are normally rarely shown.

The Genus Tricholoma in Britain
Paperback | £16.99

This guide provides identification keys to the species of the genus Tricholoma known in Britain, plus others from mainland Europe which may be found here in the future. Full descriptions and discussion of the species are provided along with nearly 60 full-colour photographs of the majority of the British species.

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

August Top 10

NHBS’s Top 10 bestsellers August 2021

We love looking back at our bestsellers from the month before and are very excited to share our Top 10 list, featuring the best of August.

This month, highlights include recent works such as Silent Earth and Collins Birds of the World, as well as several you may recognise from last month’s Top 10, such as All the Birds of the World and the consistently popular Britain’s Insects.

Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse | Dave Goulson
Hardback | August 2021

In top place this month is Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse, part love letter to the insect world, part elegy, and part rousing manifesto for a greener planet. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime of study, Silent Earth reveals the shocking decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Read our extended review.

Collins Birds of the World: All 10,711 Species Illustrated | Norman Arlott et al
Hardback | September 2021

Collins Birds of the World: All 10,711 Species Illustrated is the complete collection of the Collins Field Guide’s incredibly detailed, accurate and beautiful bird paintings brought together for the first time in one comprehensive volume. All 10,711 of the world’s bird species are covered – this is the ultimate reference book for birdwatchers and bird enthusiasts.

Read our interview with Norman Arlott.

Britain’s insects: A Field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland | Paul D. brock
Flexibound | May 2021

Britain’s Insects is even more popular this month! This field guide is an innovative, up-to-date, carefully designed and beautifully illustrated field guide to Britain and Ireland’s 25 insect orders, concentrating on popular groups and species that can be identified in the field.

A Comprehensive Guide to Insects of Britain & Ireland | Paul D. Brock
Flexibound | October 2019

A Comprehensive Guide to Insects of Britain & Ireland has moved up from the 9th spot on last month’s list. It is a complete, photographic field guide to over 2,300 species of insects in Britain and Ireland – including beetles, flies, ants, bees and wasps. The clear photographs will assist in the identification of the majority of insects likely to be encountered.

This guide also contains concise text on behaviour, present-day conservation status and pointers on species of similar appearance. Serious naturalists will welcome notes on areas to look for rarities and further resources that provide additional information on particular insect groups.

British Craneflies | Alan Stubbs
Hardback | July 2021

British Craneflies is a guide to the identification and natural history of 250 species in six families of cranefly. It describes the distribution and habitat of each one, with 128 pages of identification keys illustrated with thumbnail drawings and colour plates showing markings and venation of the wings of 180 species. This guide also contains photograph examples of some distinctive and some common craneflies, illustrations of the male genitalia for all species of Tipulidae and for most genera of other families, and introductory chapters including a full account of the enemies of craneflies.

All the Birds of the World | Josep Del Hoyo
Hardback | August 2020

This all-encompassing new guide lists all the birds of the world, allowing readers to browse and compare Earth’s amazing avian diversity between the covers of one volume. All the Birds of the World presents over 11,524 species, accompanied by 11,558 distribution maps and 20,865 illustrations detailing sexual dimorphism, morphs and distinctive subspecies.

Britain’s Butterflies: A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland | David Newland et al.
Flexibound | August 2020

This photographic field guide to all of Britain’s butterflies returns in a fourth edition, produced in association with Butterfly Conservation. Britain’s Butterflies is a comprehensive and beautifully designed photographic guide, containing hundreds of stunning colour photographs and providing the latest information on every species ever recorded. It covers all 59 butterfly species that breed regularly, four former breeders, 10 rare migrants and one species of unknown status.

Plants and Habitats: An Introduction to Common Plants and Their Habitats in Britain and Ireland |Ben Averis
Paperback | June 2013

Plants and Habitats combines the species and habitat approaches to plants and vegetation. It is an identification guide to 700 of the most common, conspicuous or useful ecological indicator plant species that make up most of Britain and Ireland’s vegetation. It also contains a separate habitats section describing the flora, ecology and management of habitats. This illustrated guide aims to help people understand our vegetation at all scales, from individual plants to whole landscapes.

A Field Guide to Grasses, Sedges and Rushes | Dominic Price
Hardback | September 2021

A Field Guide to Grasses, Sedges and Rushes is another repeat occurrence from last month’s Top 10 and is a consistent bestseller for NHBS. This guide aims to simplify the identification of this fascinating group of plants, using characters that are both easy to spot in the field and simple to remember. Over 100 species are described, focusing on key features of both their genus and species.

Read our interview with Dominic Price.

Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland | Paul Waring Et al.
Paperback | November 2018

Still popular this month, the third edition of the Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland is a fully revised and updated version.

This field guide includes beautiful illustrations displaying key features to help with identification. It covers flight season, life cycle, larval foodplants, habitat and more, along with maps presenting distribution information.

The revised edition also contains an introduction explaining how the methods of identifying and recording moths have evolved over recent years.

Author Interview: Collins Birds of the World

Collins Birds of the World is the complete collection of Norman Arlott’s beautifully detailed and accurate bird paintings, brought together for the first time. Accompanied by text detailing characteristics and appearances for each species, this comprehensive new field guide is the ultimate reference book for birdwatchers and bird lovers.

Norman Arlott is a wildlife artist and has illustrated over 200 books. He has kindly answered some of our questions on his experiences and the process of creating this all-encompassing work.

Could you tell us about your background and what inspired you to become a wildlife artist?

I originally trained as a mechanical engineer but ‘jumped ship’ in the 70s to take up my real love as a wildlife artist, with a focus on birds. I made this leap with much encouragement from my wife Marie and a great deal of help and inspiration from well-known bird artist Robert Gillmor, bird photographer Eric Hosking and the great East African ornithologist John Williams. I had no intention of working on book illustrations, but I got caught up in it, really liked it and I have enjoyed it ever since.

In the intervening years, I have contributed illustrations to over 200 books, including some classics such as Birds of the Western Palearctic, Handbook to the Birds of the World and the SASOL Birds of South Africa. Many postage stamps feature my artwork from places such as Jamaica and The Bahamas in the Caribbean, Liberia in Africa and Fiji in the Pacific Ocean.

Over the last 15 years, I have concentrated mainly on writing and illustrating a series of bird guides (more coloured checklists really) covering the Palearctic, India, The West Indies, North America, South East Asia and the Philippines – many of these illustrations and accompanying text feature in the forthcoming Birds of the World.

You’ve been a part of creating bird guides for areas as broad as the Palearctic to more specific locations such as the Indonesian Archipelago and Armenia. What have you enjoyed most about your travels?

During the last 40 years or so, I have had the good fortune to travel to various parts of the globe, most notably East and South Africa. I led safaris to Kenya and Tanzania for many years, which led to many adventures and meetings. On one of my first visits, I was fortunate to form a friendship with two people: author and broadcaster Roger A Caras and zoo director Steve Graham, enabling me to visit North America. Whilst in America, I was introduced to many of my bird-artist ‘heroes’, all of which passed on great encouragement and useful tips – one snippet passed to me by the great Arthur Singer was always to remember ‘white areas are equally as important as the illustrated areas in the look of a plate’.

When illustrating Antpittas for the Handbook of the Birds of the World, you were integral in the realisation that a specimen in the Natural History Museum was misidentified. Could you tell us more about this experience?

The Antpitta discovery came about after a research visit to the British Museum at Tring. Needing to find a reference for the Yellow-breasted Antpitta, a bird I was about to illustrate for the Handbook to the Birds of the World, I was able to photograph and make notes from the one and only skin in the museum. Before embarking on the illustration I checked the text notes provided by the authors only to discover that the text and the bird I had photograph did not correspond. My initial thought was I had photographed the wrong specimen so I called Robert Prys-Jones at the British Museum and asked him to check the skin – Robert, along with Peter Salaman, then followed up my query and came to the conclusion that the specimen in the British Museum was in fact a new subspecies of the Brown-banded Antpitta. All the relevant details of this new bird can be found in the Bulletin of the British Ornitholgists’ Club (Vol 129-1). I have made many visits to the British Museum to do research for various books and this is the only time I have known a skin to be completely misidentified, especially a skin with a label annotated by P. L. Sclater, an expert on the family.

Collins Birds of the World is a huge, comprehensive collection of over 25,000 illustrations of 10,711 species. Could you tell us a little bit about the process of creating this guide?

I was asked to consider putting together a complete coloured checklist to the Birds of the World using the vast Harper Collins artwork archive. There were a few areas that Harper Collins did not have suitable artwork, such as Australia, New Guinea and some small island groups, so I painted all of these in readiness for putting together the Birds of the World plates.

I decided that to even start this project, a standard ‘list’ was needed – it was decided that the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) world list as of January 2019 was the one I would rigidly follow. Using mainly mine and Ber Van Perlo’s artwork, I promised Harper Collins that I was able to put together the 301 plates and hopefully make a really satisfying (to look at) book, even though some of the plates may contain a great number of species.

Although told by many that I was an ‘idiot’ to take on such a project, and I admit at times I had to agree, overall I genuinely enjoyed the experience of working ‘electronically’ to produce plates. Hopefully, I fulfilled the promise I made to the publisher to produce an attractive and practical book to the Birds of the World!

After my work designing the plates, David Price Goodfellow and his team went on to produce the high-resolution scans and add any missing pieces of text, so all in all a great team effort.

After such a mammoth publication, do you have any more projects lined up for the future?

I have recently been given the opportunity by Harper Collins to produce a large-format book of my ‘proper’ paintings of British birds – what a difference from the past couple of years.

Princeton University Press: Publisher of the Month

Princeton University Press was founded in 1905 as a nonprofit publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Originally publishing university documents and newspapers, such as the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Princeton University Press didn’t publish its first book until 1912. Since then, they have published over 21,000 works, including many award-winning titles. Princeton University Press publishes well-known series such as WILDguides, the high-quality, practical guides to many wildlife regions around the world, and Princeton Illustrated Checklists, which contain illustrations and concise text of all species in specific regions. They also publish and distribute Wild Nature Press, a natural history publisher that specialises in books on marine life.

NHBS is delighted to announce Princeton University Press as our Publisher of the Month for September.

Throughout September we will have special offers on a selection of titles, giving you the opportunity to explore their books. Browse a selection of highlights below, or Princeton University Press’s entire range.

Gulls of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East: An Identification Guide

Peter Adriaens et al.
Paperback | £24.99 ~~£29.99~~

The most up-to-date guide for gull identification, with a direct and visual approach and an abundance of beautiful colour photographs. This guide also has sections comparing similar taxa, identifying hybrids, gull watching, migration and sonograms

Beetles of Western North America
Arthur V Evans
Paperback | £29.99 ~~£34.99~~

A landmark book illustrated with more than 1,500 photographs, covering 1,428 species from all 131 families that occur in the West. An extensive introduction provides information on beetle anatomy, natural history, behaviour, conservation and more.

Habitats of the World: A Field Guide for Birders, Naturalists, and Ecologists
Iain D Campbell et al.
Paperback | £24.99 ~~£27.99~~

The first field guide to the world’s major land habitats – 189 in all. This compact, accessible, and comprehensive book features concise identification descriptions and is richly illustrated.

Sharks of the World: A Complete Guide
David A Ebert et al.
Hardback | £34.99 ~~£39.99~~

The essential book for everyone interested in sharks, packed with colour illustrations, line drawings and photographs. Well-presented and easy to use, this is currently the only single guide to cover over 500 of the world’s shark species.

Ant Architecture: The Wonder, Beauty, and Science of Underground Nests
Walter R Tschinkel
Hardback | £19.99 ~~£24.99~~

This wonderfully illustrated book takes you inside an unseen world where thousands of ants build intricate homes in the soil beneath our feet. Ant Architecture charts new directions for tomorrow’s research and reflects on the role of beauty in nature and the joys of shoestring science.

Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect
Eric R Eaton
Hardback | £19.99 ~~£24.99~~

This richly illustrated book introduces you to some of the most spectacular members of the wasp realm. Written by a leading authority on these remarkable insects, Wasps reveals a world of staggering variety and endless fascination.

Plant Galls of the Western United States
Ronald A Russo
Flexibound | £18.99 ~~£24.99~~

Describing 536 species of galls and their causative agents, this guide explores this unique realm with stunning photos and fascinating information about the life cycles of the organisms involved.

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Q&A with Series Editor, Chloe Currens: Penguin’s Green Ideas series

This August, Penguin Classics will launch their new series: Green Ideas. Featuring authors such as Greta Thunberg, Rachel Carson and Tim Flannery, Green Ideas brings together key environmental voices, classic and contemporary, who are advocating for change to the way we view our living planet. Exploring a wide-range of topics, from art to economics and almost everything in between, this twenty book series highlights the most important environmental issues of our time, while seeking to broaden our collective understanding of our environment.

Ahead of publication, Series Editor Chloe Currens has very kindly agreed to answer some of our questions below.

The Penguin Green Ideas series will make for wonderful additions to the recent influx of books on climate change and the environment. Could you tell us a bit about where the idea for the series originated?

Our former publicity director came up with the idea for the series in the wake of the publication of Greta Thunberg’s No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. Thunberg had managed to raise the temperature of the global conversation – we were suddenly talking about ‘the climate and ecological crisis’, about a house on fire, rather than gesturing to a milder vision of ‘climate change,’ which, if it was a threat at all, was somewhat obscure, or distant. The suggestion was that Thunberg was one of a line of great environmental thinkers, each of whom had made a similarly profound contribution to our understanding of the living planet. From our current vantage point, we could look back on the seventy-odd years of modern environmentalism and identify those key figures. Together they would form a new canon, and so it made sense to bring the series into Penguin Classics.

A fantastic array of important authors have been featured in the series. How did you approach decision-making when selecting excerpts?

The overall aim of the series was to draw out the emerging environmental canon, following it from its modern origins – roughly, Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which exploded into public consciousness in the sixties – through to the present day, with major, agenda-setting works by Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, George Monbiot, and others. A variety of subjects naturally followed, and so the series covers everything from art and literature to economics and geopolitics, though there is a guiding concern with sustainability throughout.

In thinking about the individual selections, we again took inspiration from Thunberg’s book of speeches. In just under 80 pages, Thunberg confronted readers with a new conception of the climate crisis. She jolted us into a new understanding of whom it affects – she is of the generation we are condemning through inaction; she will be 75 years old in 2078 – and who is responsible: ‘no one is too small to make a difference’ refers to the way that ‘every single kilo’ counts when it comes to carbon emissions; none of us is exempt. These speeches are the tip of an iceberg of research – of hours spent speaking with scientists, reading scientific journals – which would be out of reach for most readers. Thunberg’s genius is the way she distils the essence of the science and thus allows millions to absorb it. We had these principles in mind when approaching the other titles in the series – we sought out accessible, representative selections of each author’s central ideas: Leopold’s ‘land ethic,’ McKibben’s ‘end of nature’, Kimmerer’s ‘principle of reciprocity’, and so on.

Were there any challenges in putting together a series such as this?

What initially appeared to be a challenge – the logistics of co-ordinating a series remotely during a global pandemic – turned out to work to our benefit, as authors around the world have been able to connect and collaborate online as we launch the series. It has been a thrill to witness.

From the original concept to producing final copies, what ambitions do you hope to achieve with the series?

Together, the twenty short books encompass many of the key ideas in modern environmental thought. I hope that the series will be used by readers as a path through the vibrant, urgent, and perhaps occasionally overwhelming wider world of ecological writing.

With many more subjects to cover and authors to feature, are there plans to expand the series with future volumes?

Yes. Like any canon, this is an evolving ecosystem.

Q&A with Lynx Edicions

Lynx Edicions is a Barcelona-based publishing house, originally founded in 1989 to create the Handbook of the Birds of the World series. They are known for their fantastic ornithology titles, alongside a varied collection of general natural history. They have published over 150 titles, including field guides and bird checklists, and continually produce exciting works, such as their most recent publication Seabirds: The New Identification Guide, a full, 600-page treatment of all known seabird species.

Lynx Edicions are our Publisher of the Month for August and have taken the time to answer some questions about their background, motivations, and current major project.

Could you please tell us a little bit about Lynx Edicions and your mission as a publishing house?

Lynx Edicions is a publishing house committed to providing high-quality ornithology and natural history books. It was founded to create the 17-volume Handbook of the Birds of the World series, the first work ever to illustrate and describe in-depth each member of an entire Class of the Animal Kingdom: Class Aves. We then applied the same detailed treatment to Class Mammalia with the Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Our work has not stopped there, but rather it has grown from this strong foundation. Furthermore, we are proud to collaborate with many different organizations and professionals to publish a wide range of titles devoted to promoting understanding and appreciation of ornithology and nature, as well as its conservation.

What inspired you to create your flagship publication, the Handbook of the Birds of the World?

In 1980, Lynx Co-founder Josep del Hoyo took a 13-month trip to Africa to explore the wildlife with a special focus on birds. In preparation for the trip, he purchased several bird field guides to help identify the species that he would be seeing. On his trip, he soon discovered that the books were not as helpful as he had imagined – they lacked details and, in some cases, they even lacked species! The experience with the books was frustrating, but Josep just thought that he had purchased the wrong books and that certainly a definitive work covering all the birds existed. However, when he returned from the trip and searched for a comprehensive treatise dedicated to birds, he surprisingly found there was none. This inspired him to create one himself and he was fortunate to find two partners, Jordi Sargatal and Ramón Mascort, to join him in this monumental effort. Together they founded Lynx Edicions in 1989 and set to work on the Handbook of the Birds of the World project.

What is the process of creating handbooks of this scale? What are the challenges involved?

Creating handbooks of this large scale involve a huge amount of collaborative effort and intricate coordination of data, materials, processes and professionals. For example, the Handbook of the Birds of the World includes detailed texts and high-quality illustrations from 277 specialists and 33 illustrators from 40 countries. The impactful photographs are the contributions of more than 850 photographers from all over the world. Of course, behind the scenes is also the hard work of a carefully orchestrated team including editors, coordinators, and production staff, as well as those dedicated to the logistics of selling and distributing the books across the world.

In addition to the challenges inherent in producing such a vast work, there are also challenges related to the important focus of the handbooks – the birds and mammals themselves – with information on species sometimes hard to find. Luckily the international ornithological and mammalogical communities have been highly supportive of the Handbook projects and have come to our aid repeatedly with data, photographs and other help to treat all the world’s birds and mammals in detail. We hope that, in a small way, the Handbooks have also encouraged some professionals to investigate, photograph and even protect species that had formerly not received as much attention.

The Handbook of the Birds of the World includes sections on species known to be extinct; why was this information important to include?

Conservation has always been an important goal of our publications, and we believe that “you cannot protect what you do not know”. So, to start, we aim to explain and illustrate the wonders of the natural world, so that people can see its value and fight to protect it. Another aspect is showing the reality of extinction and those remarkable species that we have already lost, which will hopefully lead people to act to avoid more species crossing the line into extinction. In our Handbooks, Illustrated Checklists, Field Guides and most recently All the Birds of the World, we have included the IUCN/BirdLife International conservation status for every species to help call attention to these important data. We have been very fortunate to collaborate with BirdLife International, Conservation International, IUCN, Re:wild and other international organizations to pursue the important goals of conservation through our work.

One of the publishing house’s main areas of expertise is in ornithology, with publications including field guides, illustrated checklists, and guides to bird conservation. What, in your opinion, are the greatest threats to bird biodiversity?

Habitat loss is probably the greatest threat to biodiversity on Earth today and it is certainly a devastating threat to bird biodiversity. In turn, habitat loss is directly related to human action as we modify and reshape the Earth for our uses. For example, some of the top threats to birds are related to habitat destruction and degradation, like agriculture, logging, invasive species, and climate change. Action by humans has been especially detrimental to forests, grasslands, wetlands, and other freshwater habitats.

We feel it is important to educate people about the importance of birds and their natural habitats, so that they can be encouraged to protect them and to find ways to coexist harmoniously. This is what has also inspired us to pursue our Field Guide collection for birds, as well as our Illustrated Checklist collection for mammals, in order to give local communities and travellers the tools to discover and protect local species and their habitats.

A current, major project is the Lynx and BirdLife International Field Guide Collection. Can you tell us a little about the motivation behind this series and why it is so important?

Carrying on from the previous point, this project came to life after years of conversations motivated by a shared idea between Lynx and BirdLife International that the existence of country field guides is a basic element for the “emergence” and education of birdwatchers, ornithologists, bird guides and naturalists in any given country, which, in turn, has important repercussions on the conservation of nature and biodiversity, both locally and globally. The principal goal of this collection is to produce modern, standardized field guides, especially for countries without any recent or country-level guide. The main collection is produced in English, including local-language names for the species when an official list exists. But we also have a secondary goal of publishing several of the titles in their local languages to enhance the local effects of the work. We are delighted by the success of the collection so far, with a growing number of titles authored by top experts, and we look forward to producing more now that hopefully travel will increase again after the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

July Top 10

NHBS’s Top 10 bestsellers July 2021

We love looking back at our bestsellers from the month before and are very excited to share our second Top 10 list, featuring the best of July.

This month, highlights include recent works such as Sphagnum Mosses and Seabirds, as well as some you may recognise from last month’s Top 10, Secrets of a Devon Wood and Insectinside, as recently featured on BBC’s SpringWatch.

seabirds: The New Identification Guide | Peter Harrison, et al.
Hardback | June 2021

In top place this month is Seabirds: The New Identification Guide, a 600-page treatment to all know seabird species. It’s the first comprehensive guide to the world’s seabirds to be published since Harrison’s Seabirds in 1983. This guide contains 239 brilliant, full-colour plates, along with detailed text covering status, conservation, geographic range and more.

Seabirds Publisher, Lynx Edicions, is also our publisher of the month for August!

a field guide to grasses, sedges, and rushes | Dominic price
Spiralbound | April 2016

Field Guide to the Grasses, Sedges and Rushes has moved up the list this month from the 7th spot and is a consistent bestseller for NHBS. This guide aims to simplify the identification of this fascinating group of plants, using characters that are both easy to spot in the field and simple to remember. Over 100 species are described, focusing on key features of both their genus and species.

Read our interview with Dominic Price here.

Sphagnum Mosses: FIeld Key to the Mosses of Britain and Ireland | Martin Godfrey and Karen Rogers
Paperback | July 2021

Brand new last month, Sphagnum Mosses: Field Key to the Mosses of Britain and Ireland is proving to be popular. This short handbook is intended to provide an accessible key for identifying Sphagnum species in the field.

It contains brief descriptions of the more important identification features, plus a guide to the vegetation types that the individual species occupy. As some individual specimens can be problematic, short keys based on microscopic characters are also provided.

Britain’s insects: A Field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland | Paul brock
Flexibound | May 2021

Britain’s Insects remains just as popular this month! This field guide is an innovative, up-to-date, carefully designed and beautifully illustrated field guide to Britain and Ireland’s 25 insect orders, concentrating on popular groups and species that can be identified in the field.

Insectinside: Life in the Bushes of a Small Peckham Park | Penny Metal
Paperback | October 2017

As recently featured on BBC’s Springwatch, Insectinside is a fantastic book featuring hundreds of species of insect that have all been found in Warwick Gardens in Peckham by author, Penny Metal.

We caught up with Penny to ask her some questions about her book – read the full interview here.

Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland | Paul Waring, Et al.
Paperback | November 2018

The third edition of the Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland is a fully revised and updated version.

The revised edition also contains an introduction explaining how the methods of identifying and recording moths have evolved over recent years.

Ecology and Natural history | David Wilkinson
Paperback | June 2021

The latest addition to the New Naturalist Series, Ecology and Natural History, makes it into the top ten again this month.

Ecology is the science of ecosystems, of habitats, of our world and its future. In the latest New Naturalist, ecologist David M. Wilkinson explains key ideas of this crucial branch of science, using Britain’s ecosystems to illustrate each point.

Read our Q&A with David M. Wilkinson here.

We have a limited number of signed bookplates for the hardback edition, available while stocks last.

secrets of a devon wood: my nature journal | jo brown
Hardback | October 2020

Another repeat occurrence in this months Top 10, Secrets of a Devon Wood is still high up on NHBS’s list. Artist and illustrator Jo Brown started keeping her nature diary in a bid to document the small wonders of the wood behind her home in Devon. This book is an exact replica of her original black Moleskin journal, a rich illustrated memory of Jo’s discoveries in the order in which she found them.

Jo very kindly agreed to answer some of our questions for a Q&A. Read the full interview here.

A Comprehensive Guide to Insects of Britain & Ireland | Paul D. Brock
Flexibound | October 2019

A Comprehensive Guide to Insects of Britain & Ireland is a complete, photographic field guide to over 2,300 species of insects in Britain and Ireland – including beetles, flies, ants, bees, and wasps. The clear photograph will assist in the identification of the majority of insects likely to be encountered.

This guide also contains concise text on behaviour, present-day conservation status, and pointers on species of similar appearance. Serious naturalists will welcome notes on areas to look for rarities and information on where to look for additional information on particular insect groups

All the Birds of the World | Josep Del Hoyo Hardback | August 2020

Another title from our publisher of the month, Lynx Edicions, is All the Birds of the World. With the completion of the famed Handbook of the Birds of the World, this book lists all the birds of the world, allowing readers to browse and compare Earth’s amazing avian diversity between the covers of one volume.