Pelagic was founded in 2010 to fill the publishing gap in practical books available on ecology and conservation. They publish books for scientists, conservationists, ecologists, wildlife enthusiasts – anyone with a passion for understanding and exploring the natural world. Their books cover ecological survey and evolutionary biology to natural history dictionaries and environmental statistics. With a prodigious amount of recent publishing, it is our great pleasure to announce Pelagic as our Publisher of the Month for May 2019.
New books for 2019
Pelagic have already published a plethora of great titles for 2019, from a call to action to halt biodiversity with Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and its Birds to recording the wildlife in woods with the Woodland Survey Handbook. This follows on from very strong publishing in 2018 with Bat Roosts in Trees continuing to be one of our bestsellers since it’s publication last October.
Pelagic and bat books
With two eagerly awaited bat titles: Is That a Bat? and The Barbastelle Bat Conservation Handbook in preparation and a wealth of bat survey and monitoring books already published, Pelagic are the go-to publisher for Chiroptera.
Other Pelagic books
Pelagic have – in a very short space of time – carved out a niche for themselves in wildlife publishing. A selection of their publishing is divided into series which are continually added to – these include:
Conservation Handbooks: bridging the gap between scientific theory and practical conservation implementation.
Naturalists’ Handbooks: information, covering biology, practical notes on identifying, in the field or in the laboratory, with plates of individual species and line drawings of many of the key identification characteristics.
Data in the Wild: data collection and analysis for for ecologists, includes books on camera trapping, CCTV and remote sensing.
Synopses of Conservation Evidence: The aim of the project is to make scientific evidence more accessible, in turn making practical wildlife and environmental conservation more evidence-based.
In addition to series collections, Pelagic publish many stand-alone books for practical ecologists, such as Habitat Management for Invertebrates and for travelling ornithologists, there’s the recent Where to Watch Guides ensuring you get the most from your wildlife travels.
If you want to attract more bees, birds, frogs and hedgehogs into your garden, look no further than Wildlife Gardening for Everyone and Everything. Award-winning author and journalist, Kate Bradbury offers tips on feeding your neighbourhood wildlife and explains how you can create the perfect habitats for species you’d like to welcome into your garden.
Kate kindly took some time out to answer our wildlife gardening questions, to help us get our gardens wildlife-friendly for summer!
(c) Sarah Cuttle
Can you tell us a little about your background and how you got interested in the natural world?
I grew up in a house with half an acre of garden out the back. I spend my early years out there, grubbing around in the soil looking for worms, watching the birds. I started gardening from a very young age and the natural world has always been a part of that, for me.
What interests you about gardening for wildlife?
I’ve always been a softie and I’ve always championed the underdog. I love garden wildlife but I’m also passionate about looking after it, and can see the potential our gardens have for saving so many species. Wildlife gardening is all about the power of the individual. There are so many things going on in the world we might feel powerless to change, but simply by planting flowers and caterpillar foodplants we can make a difference for local wildlife species.
I get particularly excited if I find a slow worm in the garden. What animal gives you the most pleasure if you see it visiting, or making a home in your garden?
I couldn’t pick just one! In my new garden I’m desperate to see a toad. They’re so rarely seen these days – I’d be honoured if they found their way to my garden. I’m lucky enough to have hedgehogs so I love seeing them. And a grass snake would be pretty special!
If you could pick just a single thing or activity anyone could implement in their garden that would benefit wildlife, what would it be?
Grow a few native plants. Just one native tree can support hundreds of different species – providing flowers for pollinators, leaves for caterpillars and then seeds or fruit for birds in autumn. Not to mention shelter! Non-natives have a great role in gardens – especially for pollinating insects. But it’s the natives that attract the leaf munchers – the caterpillars, leaf miners, things that need leaves to breed. And, being at the bottom of the foodchain, these are hugely important to anything from hedgehogs to frogs, toads, newts, birds and bats.
What can cause the greatest harm or damage to wildlife living in, or wanting to live in your garden?
Erecting new fences and walls. If wildlife can’t get in to your garden, you’re closing off feeding and breeding habitat to them and potentially blocking off more gardens, too. Make sure wildlife can access your garden and chat with your neighbours so they know this too. Hedgehogs need just a four inch gap beneath or cut into a fence.
If your outdoor space is very small, what are the best ways to make even a tiny outdoor space a home to wildlife?
Grow a mix of nectar- and pollen-rich plants for pollinators, plus native plants for caterpillars. In a small garden you might have room for only one tree – try a Silver Birch or standard Hawthorn, which are great for wildlife. In courtyard gardens and balconies grow forget-me-not, primroses and foxgloves. These provide nectar and pollen for pollinators but also leaves for caterpillars to eat.
Do you have any new projects in the pipeline that you’d like to tell us about?
I’ve got an exciting project coming up that I can’t talk about yet – you’ll have to wait and see!
Kate Bradbury has authored many popular gardening books and the wonderful The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. See below for a list of her books available at NHBS.
With handy charts tailored to the needs of every size and style of garden, this easy-to-use book also includes practical projects such as making bee hotels or creating wildlife ponds, compost corners and wildflower meadows, as well as fact files for the UK’s most common garden species.
Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space.
The Wildlife Gardener is a book which helps you to create wildlife habitats in your very own garden, and is very handily split into sections on shelter, food and water.
Did you know that 94% of Britain isn’t built upon, that Snowdonia is larger and emptier than the Maasai Mara National Reserve, or that Scotland’s deer estates alone cover an area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park? Britain has all the empty space it needs for an epic wildlife recovery. So what’s stopping it from happening in our country – and how can we turn things around?
Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and its Birds is a bold roadmap to reverse the decline of bird populations in Britain, suggesting we need to restore ecosystems, rather than modify farmland.
Author, Benedict Macdonald offered his valuable time to answer our questions about his important new contribution to the discussion of rewilding.
Rebirding Author: Benedict McDonald
What inspired you to become so passionate about restoring natural ecosystems?
In 2014, I began writing Rebirding in the certain knowledge that conservation in this country is failing, the birdsong around us is dying out every year, yet we have all the resources, skill and wildlife lobby to turn things around. I hope that in its small way, Rebirding will do for the UK what Sir David Attenborough’s Our Planet is beginning to do for worldwide conservation – to make people realise that nature is essential, profitable and saveable, even now – and that we have all the resources and skill to do so.
Tell us a little about your background and how you became interested in the natural world?
I never remember the moment of first being fascinated by nature, but I do remember that by the time I was five, I would make weekend visits to Berkeley Castle Butterfly Farm and was entranced by watching the butterflies drinking salts from my fingertips, and I began a collection of ones passed to me by the lady running it – after they had died. Then early trips to the Welsh coast, and Norfolk, transformed that interest into a lifelong love of birds as well. From there, their plight has drawn me into understanding and studying ecosystems and a far wider understanding of protecting nature. Since then, my love of the natural world, both as a naturalist and a TV director, has now taken me to over forty countries.
At 14, I first remember telling someone at a dinner party that I wanted to work in wildlife television. Since graduating from university, I’ve been lucky to work on a range of programmes such as Springwatch, The One Show and The Hunt for the BBC. Last week, aged 31, I attended the premiere of Sir David Attenborough’s Our Planet for Netflix, launching in the Natural History Museum in London. This is the largest conservation series ever made. I work as the researcher and a field director for the Jungles and Grasslands episodes, directing a number of sequences including desert-nesting Socotra cormorants, the secret life of the Alcon Blue butterfly, and the remarkable lives of the world’s only tool-using Orangutans.
In your opinion, what is the most detrimental practice to the wildlife of Britain?
We are often sold the untruth that what happens to British land is necessary for food production. This is almost entirely untrue. Only the profitable arable farms of the south, and east of our island, provide a bounty of food for our children. Dairy lawns and sheep farms in fact create tiny volumes of our daily diet relative to the land area they use. For example, 88% of Wales grows lamb, an optional food resource.
Of the epic wastage, however, the grouse moor is the ultimate. Eight percent of Britain’s land is burned for the creation of 0.0008% of its jobs and a contribution of just 0.005% to our GDP. For hundreds of years, thousands of beautiful wild animals have been removed, just so that Red Grouse can be turned into living clay pigeons and killed in their thousands once a year. Even hunters from other countries find this wasteful and disgusting. This area covers an area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park – blocking jobs and wildlife alike on an epic scale. Hunting estates in Finland or Sweden, by contrast, juggle the ambition of hunters to shoot a few animals with ecosystems of immense beauty and variety.
Wildlife and commerce are often presented as being in conflict, do you think this is a fair assessment, or can land stewardship that favours biodiversity over profit be of economic benefit?
This is surely the greatest imaginary conflict of our time, successful insinuated, perhaps, by the damaging economies that prevent nature from reaching its full economic potential in our country. In truth, wildlife IS commerce. Nature IS money.
Every year, even without a single charismatic megafauna such as Bison, Elk or Lynx running wild in our country, without a ‘Yellowstone’ or ‘Maasai Mara’, the English adult population make just over 3 billion visits to the natural environment each year, spending £21 billion as they do so. In Scotland, nature-based tourism is estimated to produce £1.4 billion per year, along with 39,000 FTE jobs.
In contrast, the current models of upland farming demand money from us to survive, but they do not reciprocate jobs, income or natural capital – this is life on benefits and there is no future for young people in it. In contrast, wherever nature is allowed to flourish, it’s capital potential is wondrous. In 2009, the RSPB’s lovely but very small reserves brought £66 million to local economies, and created 1,872 FTE jobs. This is more than all of England’s grouse moors, but in just a fraction of their land area.
Right now, however, we are just seeing snapshots of how nature can power and rekindle communities. In Rebirding we often look to other countries to see how true ecosystems could transform economies on a far greater scale. The final myth that we kick into touch is that Britain is short of space, 94% of our country is not built upon. Most of this area does not create essential food supplies – and is jobs-poor.
Is there one single practise or cultural shift that would be of most benefit to restoring natural ecosystems?
The Forestry Commission is the largest single land manager in Britain. It now needs to split its forests in two – rewilding key estates like the New Forest and the Forest of Dean: cutting down the spruce and replanting with native trees, then, crucially, leaving large native animals such as Beavers, Elk, cattle and horses to become the foresters. Economies in these forests would be driven through ecotourism revenues and perhaps some hunting. Elsewhere, timber forests would remain. It is hard to think of one single decision that could effect a greater transformation on British land than a decision to return Britain’s once world-class oak-lands to our nation. Another, however, would be if Scotland’s deer estates, which again cover an area twice the size of Yellowstone, could be incentivised to rewild and regrow their trees. Hunting could remain – but in this regrowing wilderness would be the potential for Elk, Lynx, Wildcats and a huge expansion in woodland species like Capercaillie.
Are you optimistic for the future of Britain’s wildlife?
Yes – but only if our conservationists act with the same pragmatism and determination as those who have prevented land reform for decades. In my closing chapter, I’ve argued that whilst farming unions behave with absolute conviction and coherence, our nature charities often simply say that a few more Skylarks would be nice. Only if we can unlock the economic arguments of nature, and harness the millions of voices effectively, will we see large areas rewilded in our country. It is the social and economic transformation that nature provides that needs to be realised – but for that, you need space, and power over land. At that moment, things will change. In my lifetime, I genuinely believe that after many fierce battles, we will see Dalmatian Pelicans flying over Somerset, and huge areas of Scotland, Wales and upland England slowly returned to a wilder state. But without absolute conviction this is possible, it will never come to pass.
Benedict Macdonald’s book is out now as part of our Spring Promotion
To discover further reading on the past, present and future of the British countryside, browse our collection.
The BSBI has a long and illustrious history as a publisher of books and periodicals aimed at both professional and amateur botanists. Tracing its origins back to 1836, the society was founded as the Botanical Society of London; from its earliest days, the BSBI has welcomed and supported everyone who wants to know more about the British and Irish flora. The society’s training, outreach and research programmes continue to support botanists at all skill levels.
BSBI Publications
The BSBI publishes a range of botanical books; their BSBI handbooks have become standard botanical field guides, containing identification keys, detailed plant descriptions and useful line drawings, together with information on habitat and distribution. They also publish important stand-alone titles, such as Hybrid Flora of the British Isles and Threatened Plants in Britain and Ireland.
The first atlas of the British and Irish flora was published in 1962. It pioneered the use of ‘dot-maps’ aligned to the OS grid which influence the hundreds of natural history grid-based atlases that followed. Work has already started on a third atlas; Atlas 2020 will be published after fieldwork has been completed in 2019. You can find out more, or even get involved by visiting their website.
The BSBI is passionate about the flora of Britain and Ireland and encourages everybody to become involved. If you are a novice and want to get started in botany, their get started page is definitely worth a visit. And if you want to put your botanical knowledge to use, opportunities for volunteers can be found here.
BSBI’s blog often features interviews with authors such as Kevin Walker, author of Threatened Plants in Britain and Ireland and John Poland (The Field Key to Winter Twigs).
British & Irish Botany Journal
British & Irish Botany is a new online journal from the BSBI. The journal aims to provide a new forum for publishing papers and articles relating to the vascular plants and charophytes of Britain and Ireland.
British and Irish Botany will welcome contributions in a number of formats and you can find out more about this forum here.
There has been a wealth of climate change-based publications in recent times reflecting the growing urgency of this issue. In this blog post, we present a selection of thought-provoking titles on climate change, from handbooks for how we should proceed into the future, to how climate change has and may impact biodiversity on a more local scale
Climate Change and British Wildlife
Hardback | Oct 2018| £29.99£34.99
A thoroughly researched and timely account of climate change in the British Isles.
Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals
Hardback | Feb 2019| £37.99£44.99
A detailed book presenting the pathways to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2050, globally and across ten geographical regions.
Oceans in Decline
Paperback | March 2019 | £19.99 £22.99
This book identifies and describes the changes occurring in all marine ecosystems, and discusses the long-passed state of equilibrium
All prices in this article are correct at the time of posting (February 2019)
You can also browse our full range of climate change books on our website.
Oxford University Press are NHBS’s Publisher of the Month for February 2019.
Founded in the mid-17th Century, Oxford University Press (OUP) have published some of the most influential environmental books. Nearly 400 years later, OUP continue to release important works as the largest university press in the world. Their diverse repertoire consists of The Selfish Gene, Conservation Drones, Birds in an Ancient World and many more.
Oxford University Press and Natural History Publishing
OUP’s biology and natural history lists can be traced back to the early twentieth century, when a series of classic academic texts from scientific luminaries such as John Haldane and Julian Huxley firmly established OUP as a science publisher. Its reputation grew with classic titles including Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene.
OUP’s current book list covers a whole host of biology topics from a variety of ecosystems and across the entire taxonomic spectrum, from viruses to humans. It has a particular strength in the fields of evolutionary biology and animal biology and a growing presence in the fields of ecology, epidemiology, biostatistics, conservation biology, aquatic biology and plant science.
Great prices on recent bestselling professional and academic titles
Oxford University Press, highlights from 2018 and forthcoming in 2019
2018 was a great year with titles including: Birds in the Ancient World, illustrating the many different roles birds played in culture; Skeletons: The Frame of Life, diving into how the tiniest seed shrimp through to the gigantic dinosaurs evolved; Conservation Drones, looking at the use of drones in mapping and monitoring biodiversity; an excellent introduction to the many solutions organisms have evolved to see their world, with Eyes to See and a fascinating account on how ancient DNA is rewriting most of what we thought we knew about human history with Who We Are and How We Got Here.
2019 looks just as exciting, with the following titles due soon:
Special Offers on Oxford University Press titles in Backlist Bargains
Discover the numerous OUP titles in our biggest sale of the year – Backlist Bargains, where you can discover great prices on everything from field guides and good reads to monographs and other academic titles.
The Gratis Books Scheme
One of the most rewarding OUP-NHBS collaborations has been in the form of the Gratis Books Scheme. Since 1999, with support and assistance from the British Ecological Society, this scheme has been sending free copies of books to conservationists in developing countries who would otherwise be unable to obtain them.
The exciting environment of the rocky shore receives a space in the limelight with this new volume. The authors guide the reader through all aspects of the rocky shore including geology, ecology and natural history. It would make a fantastic addition to any naturalist’s book shelf.
John Archer-Thomson
John Archer-Thomson and Julian Cremona have spent their lives in environmental education and conservation. They are a former deputy head and head respectively of the Field Studies Council’s Dale Fort Field Centre in Pembrokeshire. John is now a freelance coastal ecologist, photographer, writer and tutor, while Julian is the author of several books on exploration, nature and photography.
Julian Cremona
To introduce the authors and their book, we took the opportunity to talk to them about their inspiration for this volume and ask for tips for how we can get involved with rocky shores. Both authors will be signing copies which are available to pre-order on the NHBS website.
What drew you both to this habitat and inspired the production of this fascinating book?
As we say in Chapter 1, we were both born near the coast and grew up loving the sea and so were always drawn to the intertidal, especially as many of the inhabitants are quite weird. From the earliest days with the Dorset Wildlife Trust John enjoyed communicating his love of the shore and the importance of its conservation and the need to respect the natural world. As a child Julian collected all manner of natural material from the shore and after graduation taught seashore ecology in Dorset. We see Rocky Shores as an extension of this mission.
How did you even begin to write this book on such a wide-ranging topic?Forty years of running inter-tidal field courses tends to focus attention on making shores accessible to newcomers, we approached the book from a similar standpoint. John particularly likes molluscs, seaweeds and lichens; Julian, all types of invertebrates especially insects, and as ecologists we love the way the component parts of the system interact, John is also particularly interested in how humans are affecting the shore while Julian has spent much of his life travelling the coast of the British Isles. Thus certain chapters suggested themselves!
What was your most exciting find on a rocky shore that people should look out for in the future?
For John it has to be echinoderms in general and Julian likes the more microscopic life living amongst seaweeds in rock pools. We don’t quite know why, but the little pseudoscorpion called Neobisium maritimum always causes excitement for both of us. They are tiny, only a few millimetres long, quite uncommon and may be found by observing the Black Lichen Lichina pygmaea in which they sometimes hide.
I recommend this book as a fantastic in-depth overview, but what would you suggest readers do to further their rocky shore learning?
John runs a “Rocky shore invertebrates” course for the Field Studies Council at Dale Fort Field Centre. This looks at the ecology of the shore, zonation patterns, adaptations of organisms to this extreme environment and of course the ‘plant’ (and planktonic) life that supports this biodiversity: come on this. Alternatively, there are fold out (FSC) keys for a more do-it-yourself approach, in fact, two of these have been produced by Julian’s daughter Clare Cremona including the Rocky Shore Trail. In 2014 Julian produced a large book called Seashores: an Ecological Guide, which has a huge number of photos to help with the identification of commonly found species and explains how they interact on the shore. A Complete guide to British Coastal Wildlife by Collins and the excellent A student’s guide to the seashore by Fish & Fish. For a more academic, but still very readable, account try The Biology of Rocky Shores by Little et al, Oxford Press.
Although adaptable, rocky shore inhabitants are not invincible, what do you think is the biggest threat to the rocky shore ecosystem and are some species more at risk than others?
That’s easy: us. There are too many human beings gobbling up habitat, consuming resources, changing the climate, raising sea levels, acidifying the ocean, over-fishing, polluting with plastic, agricultural and industrial chemicals and so on. Stressed ecosystems tend to be species poor but there are often large numbers of a few fast growing, tolerant species that do well. Northern, cold water species are already suffering range contractions as the climate warms, whereas the opposite is true of southern, high temperature tolerant forms, including invasive species from warmer climes.
Staying on the theme of the future, what is next for you both – another book perhaps?
For John this would be intertidal and sublittoral monitoring and photography. Running courses for the FSC. Talks for local natural history groups. Magazine articles and an update of “Photographing Pembrokeshire” by John & Sally Archer-Thomson, Apple iBooks. Julian has a trio of specialist photography books being published by Crowood press. The first two on extreme close-up photography have already appeared and the third will be published at the beginning of April. He continues to develop new ways to photograph wildlife, especially the “very small”. Coupled with this 2019 includes running further workshops, lecturing and travel – for the wildlife!
Last year saw the publication of the first comprehensive review of the status of British mammal populations for over 20 years and and the more concise Britain’s Mammals 2018. These works provide vital reference texts for anybody working within UK mammal conservation and both titles express The Mammals Society’s commitment to science-led mammal conservation.
Forty Years of Publishing
To celebrate The Mammal Society, we are offering 20% discount on four of their important titles throughout January.
The Mammal Society aims to continue to publish new and updated titles in 2019 and beyond. We are particularly looking forward to a new edition to the long out-of-print Live Trapping of Small Mammals A Practical Guide which is currently in preparation.
The Mammal Society and NHBS
NHBS are proud to be the official distributor for all The Mammal Society books and are delighted to be able to help them communicate their expertise to passionate naturalists and conservation professionals alike.
Why not enter the Mammal Society’s 2019 Mammal Photographer of the Year competition? The competition is for amateur photographers, it’s free to enter and, as well as the chance of getting some great national coverage, you could win a £50 NHBS voucher or a year’s subscription to British Wildlife magazine, among many other prizes including a holiday! Go to https://www.mammal.org.uk/mpoy/ for more details on how to enter and full terms and conditions. Closing date for entries 1 March 2019.
Mammal Photographer of the Year 2018
2018 Winner: Common Dolphin in Flight by James West
To the general naturalist, ladybirds are arguably the most familiar group of beetles and an up-to-date field guide has been long overdue. Now, after exhaustive research and diligent illustrations, this brand new field guide covering all 47 species of ladybird occurring in Britain and Ireland is finally available.
The authors Helen E. Roy and Peter Brown and illustrator, Richard Lewington signing the hardback edition exclusively for NHBS. Available while stocks last…
They also found time to answer a few questions regarding the making of this definitive field guide to the ladybirds of Britain and Ireland.
With all the research, detailed illustrations, and accessible format design of this guide, how long has this project been in the making?
As the illustrations of the adults, larvae and pupae were all made from living specimens, collected in the wild, we needed at least two seasons to collect them all, and for Richard to illustrate them.
Ladybirds are a niche set of organisms which can be often overlooked, where did the inspiration to produce this field guide come from?
The brightly coloured ladybirds are an extremely popular group of insects but the small so-called inconspicuous ladybirds are under-recorded. Similarly, the larvae and pupae of ladybirds are less well known. We hope that this field guide, adding to the popular series of field guides published by Bloomsbury, will encourage recording of all ladybirds in all life stages. It is also a celebration of the amazing contributions to the UK Ladybird Survey from so many people.
Field guides can provide an essential tool to assist monitoring and conservation efforts of species. Could you explain why our ladybirds may need to be monitored?
Ladybirds, like all insects, respond to environmental change in different ways. Some species are expanding in range but many others are struggling. Understanding these patterns and trends is extremely important for informing conservation and decision-making. Many species of ladybird are beneficial, providing pest control of common garden and agricultural pests such as aphids and scale insects, and so it is important to consider the changing dynamics of these important species. How ladybirds are responding to climate change is another important aspect that the monitoring data will show.
Each illustration is so detailed, what is the process for reproducing a ladybird so accurately?
Detail and accuracy are the two most important considerations when producing illustrations for a field guide and working from actual specimens, rather than from photographs, is essential. Only then can measured drawings be made for correct anatomical details. Photos can be used as a supplement and museum specimens are also helpful if live material is unavailable.
With each book or field guide you hear of unexpected challenges. What was the biggest challenge in creating this field guide?
As the larval and pupal stages of ladybirds are quite short in duration, the main challenge for Richard was having to illustrate them as soon as he received them, often by post. The larvae also needed to be fed, at the same time ensuring the carnivorous species were kept apart, as many are cannibalistic. The inconspicuous species were the most challenging to illustrate as they are tiny, most around 2–4mm long, and covered in minute hairs, which often form diagnostically important patterns on their wing cases.
It has been such a pleasure to work together – we have all learnt from one another along the way. It has been inspiring to hear from Richard about the microscopic details of some of the little ladybirds that had previously gone unnoticed by us.
Helen E. Roy (Author)
Peter Brown (Author)
Richard Lewington (Illustrator)
Professor Helen Roy’s research at the Biological Records Centre focuses on the effects of environmental change on insect populations and communities, and she is particularly interested in the dynamics of invasive species and their effects on native biodiversity.
Dr Peter Brown is an ecologist and senior lecturer in zoology at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. His research focuses on three main areas: ladybirds, non-native species and citizen science.
Standing a metre tall, with a wingspan approaching three metres, the Steller’s Sea Eagle is a magnificent and impressive bird.
Published in November, Richard Sale’s new book is the first English-language study of this bird of prey. A translation of an earlier Russian book written by Masterov and Romanov, the English version benefits from significant updates and a wealth of new photographs.
We recently chatted with Richard about the Steller’s Sea Eagle, his passion for birds and his love of the Arctic.
In your author biography you are described as a physicist with a PhD in astrophysics. Is physics still a part of your life or do you now devote all of your time to your writing and natural history studies?
Physics will always be a part of my life. I started out as a working physicist, at first as a glaciologist in Switzerland because they paid me to stay in the mountains where I could climb on my days off. Then I moved back to the UK to work. After a few years I left full-time employment and started a consultancy which allowed me to share physics with my love of birds and of snow and ice.
You obviously have a huge passion for birds, and you also spend much of your time studying Arctic ecology. Where did these twin passions come from?
The love of birds started with my father who was a birdwatcher. Our holidays were geared around the breeding season and we went to the moors rather than the beach. He taught me to really watch birds, not just to be able to name them but to able to understand their habits. My other love as a kid was climbing; at first rock faces, then mountains. The love of snow and ice and birds led naturally to wanting to visit the Arctic. After the first trip I really didn’t want to go anywhere else, especially as I am no lover of hot weather.
How did the collaboration for Steller’s Sea Eagle come about? Were you approached to work on the English version of the book or is it something that you yourself instigated?
I had visited Kamchatka in summer and winter and been in the field with Yevgeni Lobkov, one the experts on Kamchatka’s Steller’s. I subsequently went to Hokkaido several times to see the eagles on the sea ice. Then I found the Russian book and corresponded with Michael Romanov. That led to the idea of translating it into English, so I obtained the English rights from the Russian publisher. At first the idea was just to translate the Russian book, but by questioning Michael and Vladimir about sections of text, and then suggesting that we include my work on flight characteristics, the two of them suggested I should be co-author as the book was now looking substantially different from the original.
Can you describe your first sighting of a Steller’s Sea Eagle? How did it make you feel?
I mentioned Yevgeni Lobkov above. He and I took a trip along the Zupanova River in a Zodiac and I remember the first time a Steller’s came over us. It was low down and seemed to blot out the light because of its size. No one who sees a Steller’s can avoid being impressed and I was immediately enraptured.
I was intrigued to read that you have worked with a captive Steller’s Sea Eagle here in the UK. Can you tell us more about this experience?
Once in the Arctic, on Bylot Island, I was watching a Gyrfalcon hunting Arctic Ground Squirrels and because of the terrain, a narrow valley, I could see the falcon was not stooping in a straight line. That led to investigating the physiology of falcon eyes, and to designing a small unit with gps, tri-axial accelerometers, magnetometers and gyros (and other bits) to fly on falconry birds to study how they fly. I managed to get the weight down to a few grams – though that hardly mattered when I found someone flying a captive Steller’s in England as it weighed 5kg. It was flying the units on that bird that is in the new book. Atlas, the eagle, was flown in demonstrations for the public and allowed me to investigate wing beat frequencies, speed etc. It was great fun as he was such a docile bird, a real gentle giant, and being allowed to get so close to him was marvellous.
It seems that two of the main pressures on the Steller’s Sea Eagle are fossil fuel exploration from humans and predation from brown bears. Are there currently any population estimates for the species, and are you hopeful for their future survival?
The situation is not good. The company drilling for oil and gas have been helpful in taking enormous care over onshore works near breeding sites and are to be commended for that. But the fact is that, as human activities of all sorts have expanded close to Steller’s habitats (most of which are well away from the oil/gas exploration sites), the population has gone into decline. We can overcome bear predation by fitting anti-bear devices to trees. We can erect artificial nest and roost sites. But despite all of this, at the moment the population numbers are slowly coming down, probably as a result of global warming, though we are not yet definite about that. Hopefully the population will stabilise but only time will tell if our efforts have been sufficient.
Within a given year, how much time do you spend travelling and how much writing? Do you enjoy each part of the process equally?
Age is catching up with me now and so I spend less time in the Arctic than I did (when I could be there for many weeks during the breeding season). But I still get into the field regularly – particularly at the moment with my units flying on falconry birds and with studies on Merlins in Iceland, Scotland and Hobbies in England and Wales. But I also spend a lot of time in the library reading about birds and, sadly, the damage we are causing them through industrialisation and climate change. As everyone knows, there is hardly any money to be made nowadays as a writer of books on natural history and related topics, but I also enjoy the process of writing and preparing books for publication.
Another of your books, The Arctic, is due for publication in December. What’s next for you? Do you have another project in the pipeline?
That book is an updated, but shortened, version of one I produced some years ago with new photographs by myself and a Norwegian photographer I bumped into one winter out on the sea ice of Svalbard. We have made several journeys together since and stay in close touch as we share a love of the Arctic. The next will likely be an updated and expanded version of the one I produced on the Merlin. Merlins are my favourite raptor. Falcons are, in general, warm-weather birds. The exceptions are the Gyrfalcons, which are the largest falcons, the Peregrine (which lives more or less everywhere) and is also large, and the tiny Merlin. I am as entranced by these little birds making a living in the harshest climates as I am by the huge Steller’s.
“When it is -35 C and you are on a snow scooter at 40 kph you look like this or, you are frostbitten in seconds”
Richard Sale is a physicist with a PhD in astrophysics, who now devotes his time to studying Arctic ecology and the flight dynamics of raptors. With Eugene Potapov he co-authored The Gyrfalcon monograph which won the US Wildlife Society Book of the Year in 2006. His other books include The Snowy Owl, Wildlife of the Arctic and the New Naturalist title Falcons.
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