Tag: Ornithology

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.

Jon Dunn is a natural history writer, photographer and wildlife tour leader. He is the author of the fantastic Orchid Summer among other books, and his writing and photographs have been featured in Britain’s Mammals and numerous wildlife magazines and journals.

In his latest book, The Glitter in the Green, Jon documents his expeditions from the farthest reaches of Alaska to the tip of South America in Tierra del Fuego in search of hummingbirds. Weaving history and travel writing together, the book describes the special place hummingbirds have in both mythology and culture, all while addressing not only how hummingbirds have suffered in the past, but the threats they face today. Jon kindly agreed to answer some of our questions below.

When and how did you first discover hummingbirds and what is it that draws you to them?

I’ve got the Natural History Museum in London to thank for planting the seed that was to grow, over the years, into a full-blown hummingbird habit. I was a young kid in the 1980s, taken to London by my mother for a day doing the usual tourist things – she wisely saved a visit to NHM London until later in the day, as she knew once I was in there I wouldn’t want to leave.

Amongst the many exhibits one in particular caught me by surprise – a large glass cabinet filled with hummingbird taxidermy. I know, that’s a bit bleak by the standards of today, but back then all I had eyes for were the shapes, forms and colours of the birds. They were so very different to the birds I was used to seeing in the Somerset countryside around our home. After that, every now and again I’d see footage of hummingbirds on wildlife documentaries, and began to appreciate further just how remarkable they were – what Tim Dee described as ‘strange birds: not quite birds or somehow more than birds, birds 2.0, perhaps’.

As a naturalist and a storyteller, I’m a bit like a bowerbird, drawn to colour. Hummingbirds really have it all going on – their biology is one superlative after another; their plumage is jewel-like; they’re found throughout the Americas in almost every conceivable habitat; and they’ve fascinated mankind from our earliest recorded encounters with them – there’s a rich vein of stories to dig into. 

Were there any particular encounters that stood out for you during your research?

Seeing my first Marvellous Spatuletail caught me by surprise. They’re renowned for their plumage and rarity alike, so I was prepared to feel that cocktail of joy and relief familiar to any birder who’s just caught up with a keenly anticipated species. The reality though far exceeded that – the delicacy of the bird compared to the many other hummingbird species swirling around the clearing in question, those preposterous tail feathers, the culmination of waiting decades to see one… I found that a bird could be literally as well as metaphorically jaw-dropping.

There were plenty of other moments that I’ll hold in my heart, and they don’t all involve the iconic, rare species. One such was watching Golden-tailed Sapphires, a hummingbird that looks as if it’s been dipped in rainbows, feeding in a clearing in the immediate aftermath of a heavy rain shower. As the sun broke through the dripping vegetation and steaming air we were suddenly surrounded by myriad small rainbows through which the birds were flying. That moment was ephemeral, over almost as soon as it began, but it’s etched in my memory forever. 

Hummingbirds have long been venerated and romanticised in art and in your book you talk about the emotive response that hummingbirds elicit in people. Why do you think that this is?

I found myself asking myself that very question as my journey into their world unfolded… Hummingbirds certainly seem to touch something deep inside us. They featured in the mythology of the Aztecs; inspired the most dramatic of all of the immense geoglyphs carved into the desert floor by the Nazca; appear in renowned art and literature; and, to this day, are singled out for particular love by those whose gardens they frequent, people who would not necessarily identify themselves as birders.

I think it’s their character as much as their beauty that has always called to us – many species are confiding, and are happy to feed in close proximity to us. Over millennia we’ve given many animals ample cause to be shy of us – and indeed, down the years we’ve slaughtered hummingbirds in their millions for their feathers, whether they were to feature in Aztec status symbols, Catholic icons or on 19th century hats. Yet despite this, hummingbirds remain unphased by our presence. Perhaps there’s something subconsciously reassuring about that.    

In order to see some species, your expeditions took you to some very remote places. Did this present any challenges?

Inevitably there were some logistical challenges to contend with, not least having to reacquaint myself with horse-riding after a decades-long and deliberate avoidance of it! There were a couple of close encounters with large predators that were, in hindsight, more alarming than they felt at the time – as a naturalist, I was thrilled to get (very) close views of a puma… But perhaps the most challenging moment of all was landing in Bolivia at the very moment the country was taking to the streets to protest the outcome of a recent presidential election. There was an incident at a roadblock manned by armed men that was genuinely scary, with an outcome that hung in the balance for a terrifying instant, and could easily have ended badly.

Hummingbirds face many threats to their existence, including habitat loss, climate-change, deforestation, as you talk about in your book. Post-research, do you feel any optimism for these magnificent creatures?

This is a really difficult question. On the one hand, I learned of examples of conservation where hummingbirds – amongst other species, of course – were the beneficiaries of excellent conservation work at a local level. On the other hand, when you start to take a pragmatic long view of our impact to date on the habitats the birds rely upon across the Americas, it’s hard to remain upbeat. We’ve destroyed so much already, especially in the past century – and with a growing global population, the pressures of economic development are only going to intensify human activity and its impacts.    

I sometimes think there’s almost too much optimism expressed when talking about conservation challenges anywhere in the world – a narrative that suggests “if we only care enough, the [insert iconic species name here] can be saved”. And to a degree, that’s good – we’ve got to have hope, as the alternative is too dreadful to countenance – but given our impact to date, and in an uncertain future where the effects of climate change are still unfolding and will continue for many decades to come, to name just the biggest of the mounting pressures on the natural world, I’m not sure that I do feel terribly optimistic, least of all for those hummingbird species that have very localized populations, or depend upon very specific habitats. They’re undeniably vulnerable. But like Fox Mulder, I want to believe…   

 Do you have any plans for further books?

I do indeed… Having delved into the worlds of two of my personal favourites, terrestrial orchids and hummingbirds, in the last two books, the book I’m currently writing will have a wider focus – exploring the evolving relationship between humanity and the natural world. It’ll be a deep dive into a world of obsession, joy, exploitation and wonder – a place where the truth is stranger than fiction. 

The Glitter in the Green
By: Jon Dunn
Hardback | June 2021

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

Whirling swifts overhead are evocative of early summer, and their arrival to the UK brings joy to many. In Swifts and Us, Sarah Gibson explores what is currently known about swifts and their ancestry, while also addressing some of the contributing factors to their huge decline over the last few decades. She meets key experts and researchers as well as many determined individuals, all advocating for change to ensure the swifts’ survival.

Sarah Gibson is Press Officer for Shropshire Wildlife Trust, as well as Editor of the members’ magazine. She also regularly writes nature columns for her local magazines and newspapers. Sarah has kindly agreed to answer some of our questions below.

Firstly, could you tell us about where the motivation for your book came from?

I’d become passionate about swifts since moving into a town from the country.  Then I had a long period of illness and would be exhausted after the briefest of conversations and couldn’t even walk up my street – I was so slow I would be overtaken by very old people on Zimmer frames. It seemed as though I’d hit 97 five decades prematurely.

Then I got better and decided it was time to do something new with my life – alongside my now part-time job at Shropshire Wildlife Trust. I knew I could string words together, so decided to research and write a book about swifts to try and inspire others to love and take action for them too.

During your research, did you discover anything especially interesting that you were previously unaware of about swifts?

That hummingbirds are the swift’s closest relatives! Fossil evidence from 52 million years ago found in Wyoming, USA, revealed a bird that is the forerunner of both. The characteristic common feature is a super-strong, stout humerus bone, that would enable the swift to endure and flourish in perpetual flight and the hummingbird to flap its wings 50 times per second as it hovers over flowers collecting nectar. Their shared ancestry seems less surprising when you think about the intense aerial demands of both birds. 

Your book features exceptional and inspirational people that have fought to ensure nest spots are protected and accessible for returning swifts. Do you have any particular highlights or success stories that you’d like to talk about here?

The Crescent Art Centre in Belfast is a cross-community cultural hub, bringing people together from all backgrounds.  It also has a thriving colony of swifts and when major renovation work began 12 years ago, the architects and builders worked with a local swift champion to ensure that access to the original nesting holes was retained and additional holes provided by integrating nest bricks into the walls. This is a great example of how renovation doesn’t have to lead to ruin for swifts.  It can be achieved, if thoughtfully carried out. This swift colony is now a living emblem of the arts centre and its aspirations – uniting people across boundaries. 

What role can citizen science play in surveying and monitoring swifts?

Local surveys to identify swift breeding sites are very valuable. Knowledge of swift colonies can at times make it possible to work with building owners when renovation works are planned, so that nesting holes can be retained. When the data is fed through to local biological records centres, the presence of swifts in particular areas will be flagged up to planners who will sometimes, but not always make it a condition for development that nest bricks should be integrated into buildings.

The RSPB’s SwiftMapper is a useful tool and you can find out about surveying with local swift groups from Action for Swifts or Swift Conservation.

Habitat destruction, climate change and a stark reduction in their food supply are just a few factors contributing to the decline of swifts over the past 20 years – the odds appear completely stacked against them. Post-research for your book, do you feel any optimism for the future of these incredible birds?

Contemplating the global crisis in nature can lead to despair. Our inability to prevent the destruction of wild habitats and the wild creatures that depend on it strikes deep into our souls, but worrying about the future cripples our ability to act, so I try to live in the present. It is what we do now that will shape the future and we need all of our energy to bring better times.

Climate change is inextricably linked to the degradation of nature. At last, there seems to be a glimmer of awakening at a political level to the fact that nurturing nature is essential for all our sakes. The campaign for 30% of land and sea to be protected by 2030 across the world brings hope but it needs a radical reset of values to be achieved.  All of us though, can do something to help bring it to reality. 

Do you have any current projects or plans for further books that you’d like to tell us about?

I’ve just been down to my local cemetery where there’s a project to turn the unmarked graves area into a wildflower meadow.  The yellow rattle seed we sowed last August is coming up, along with cowslips and violets.  It will be a living memorial for those buried beneath and will attract bees and other pollinators.  I’m also keeping an eye on the eaves of a medieval building managed by the town council. Restoration work on the timbers last autumn included six bespoke swift nest boxes – fingers crossed! 

There will be another book but I haven’t written it yet.  It will explore the connectedness of people with nature but I can’t reveal more just now.

Swifts and Us
By: Sarah Gibson
Hardback | Published May 2021 | £16.99

We have a very limited number of bookplates signed by Sarah, available while stocks last.

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

Renowned for its incredible and diverse wildlife, it is no wonder that Skomer Island receives thousands of visitors year upon year. Famous for its thriving populations of seabirds, grey seals and its vast swathes of spring flowers, Skomer is a fantastic example of how carefully managed eco-tourism works alongside conservation.

Mike Alexander was Warden of Skomer for ten years, and has had links to the island for over six decades. He is now Chair of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and the Pembrokeshire Islands Conservation Advisory Committee. Illustrated with his own stunning photographs of the flora and fauna, this book is a comprehensive history of the island and its inhabitants.

Could you tell us a bit about your background and where the motivation for your book came from?

I first visited as a schoolboy in 1962, just a couple of years into Skomer’s incarnation as a nature reserve, and it was a day that changed my life forever. The most overwhelming idea that stayed with me from that day was that eventually, whatever it took, I would become warden of Skomer.  I finally fulfilled that long-held childhood dream in the spring of 1976. Following 10 wonderful years on Skomer I moved to North Wales where initially I was responsible for the management of 5 spectacular National Nature Reserves and in 1991, I became responsible for supervising the management of the entire series of NNRs in Wales, a position I held for over twenty years. In 2018 I became the chair of the Pembrokeshire islands conservation advisory committee and so my commitment to Skomer continues.

I had long dreamed of writing a book about Skomer, but in truth had little idea of how I might achieve that goal. Skomer is a cultural landscape shaped over thousands of years by people striving to make a living. I wanted to show how the island has evolved in response to changing human values, attitudes and interventions. I also wanted an opportunity to demonstrate what nature conservation means in practice. Reserves like Skomer are the most powerful advocate for nature that we could possibly have. The island gives visitors an almost magical insight into somewhere that transcends our ordinary world, where one close encounter with a puffin may speak more eloquently for conservation than a thousand words ever could.

Previous to the island becoming an NNR in 1959, you mention Skomer’s agricultural history. Could you tell us here a little about the island’s past?

Skomer’s time as a nature reserve spans barely a moment in its history. People have occupied Skomer for millennia, and archaeologist John Evans has described Skomer as possibly unique in the completeness of its archaeological remains. Present day visitors to the island can clearly pick out faint patterns of the distant past: field systems, lynchets, hut circles and more. Until recently, archaeologists and historians believed that apart from rabbit trapping and livestock grazing, the island had been abandoned after the Iron Age. However, new excavations in 2017 revealed the presence of medieval land clearance and ploughing.

During my ten years living on Skomer I became increasingly interested in the people who had lived there before me and most of all, the 19th century inhabitants who had farmed and made their living on the island. The people of the 19th century left the heaviest footprints as theirs was a time when people imposed their will on the island, shaping the land to meet their needs. This was a period of intense intervention and although it began to fade towards the end of the century, it was a time when people had the most impact on the island, its scenery and vegetation. How long will it be before the Victorian farmers’ footprints fade away? We, the later islanders, have become noninterventionists, and observers of nature’s progress. Ours should be the lightest of all footprints, and so perhaps the impact of the 19th century will, for now, be the most enduring of all human influences.

Recent news of Skomer’s thriving populations of seabirds like the puffin and Manx shearwater offer much hope. What major changes do you think are necessary to ensure species recovery and habitat restoration in Britain?

My generation has grown up with an almost subliminal pessimism about the fate of our wildlife to the point where decline seems inevitable and we can only hope to slow the rate of it. To have seen Skomer thrive throughout its time as a nature reserve is contrary to nearly everything I have grown up to believe, and yet it is important to remember that Skomer once had the potential for so much more. We know from photographs taken around the turn of the last century, that there was a minimum island population of around 100,000 Guillemots: four times the present number. The photographs also show the grassy slopes above the cliffs thick with Puffins, where now they only form a thin fringe. Perhaps these things will not be possible again, but it is a vital reminder never to set our sights too low and to hold on to that vision of what the future could be.

Species and habitat recovery will only happen when our policies and legislation are translated into action.  Good intentions alone will achieve nothing. It is quite ironic that despite the enormous growth in public concern and protest about the fate of our natural environment, governments are failing to provide the essential resources. 

The NNRs, along with all other protected areas, will be a central and essential component of any species and habitat recovery or restoration programme. They are the stepping stones, the vital reservoirs and the crucial resources that will enable landscape scale recovery in Britain.

With restricted movement during the Covid-19 pandemic that many are referring to as the ‘anthropause’, people across the globe have noticed changes to their local wildlife. How has the lack of eco-tourism affected the wildlife on Skomer during this time?

Skomer is an extremely fragile island with hundreds of thousands of seabirds. Puffins and Manx Shearwaters nest in shallow burrows, while the cliffs provide homes for thousands of Guillemots, Razorbills and Kittiwakes. As a consequence, all visitors to the island understand that they must keep to the system of marked footpaths at all times. This has made it possible for us to claim with confidence that visitors to Skomer have no impact on the wildlife that they come to enjoy. So apart from overgrown paths, there has been no significant discernible impact.

There are plenty of signs from elsewhere that wildlife has responded positively to the lack of human disturbance.  It may well be that some species will gain a short-term advantage, but I am not convinced that the impact of Covid-19 on wildlife will be anything more than a very minor, and almost irrelevant, hiccup, unless of course we can learn from the experience. We must learn to change our behaviour and realise that we will not survive on this planet if we regard unfettered consumerism as our main purpose in life. 

Do you have any other projects on the horizon you’d like to tell us about?

I will take a break from writing and concentrate on photography.  I was recently elected Chair of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and I am looking forward to devoting much of my time to working for the Trust.

Skomer Island
By: Mike Alexander
Hardback | Due April 2021 | £29.99

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