"Over the past hundred years, gulls have been brought ashore by modernity. They now live not only on the coasts but in our slipstream following trawlers, barges, and garbage trucks. They are more our contemporaries than most birds, living their wild lives among us in towns and cities. In many ways they live as we do, walking the built-up world and grabbing a bite where they can. Yet this disturbs us. We've started fearing gulls for getting good at being among us. We see them as scavengers, not entrepreneurs; ocean-going aliens, not refugees. They are too big for the world they have entered. Their story is our story too. Landfill is the original and compelling story of how in the Anthropocene we have learned about the natural world, named and catalogued it, and then colonized it, planted it, or filled it with our junk. While most other birds have gone in the opposite direction, hiding away from us, some vanishing forever, gulls continue to tell us how the wild can share our world. For these reasons Landfill is the nature book for our times, groundbreaking and genre-bending. Without nostalgia or eulogy, it kicks beneath the littered surface of the things to discover stranger truths"--

Enter ancient lands of wind and waves where the planet

What is it that binds human beings to other animals? T. H. White, the author of The Once and Future King and Mistress Masham’s Repose, was a young writer who found himself rifling through old handbooks of falconry. A particular sentence—“the bird reverted to a feral state”—seized his imagination, and, White later wrote, “A longing came to my mind that I should be able to do this myself. The word ‘feral’ has a kind of magical potency which allied itself to two other words, ‘ferocious’ and ‘free.’” Immediately, White wrote to Germany to acquire a young goshawk. Gos, as White named the bird, was ferocious and Gos was free, and White had no idea how to break him in beyond the ancient (and, though he did not know it, long superseded) practice of depriving him of sleep, which meant that he, White, also went without rest. Slowly man and bird entered a state of delirium and intoxication, of attraction and repulsion that looks very much like love. White kept a daybook describing his volatile relationship with Gos—at once a tale of obsession, a comedy of errors, and a hymn to the hawk. It was this that became The Goshawk, one of modern literature’s most memorable and surprising encounters with the wilderness—as it exists both within us and without.

The author describes his years of service to the Queen, which include caring for the infamous ravens of the Tower of London, painting a vivid portrait of these intelligent, unusual, and often misunderstood birds.

A leading hummingbird-rehabilitation therapist describes her work with dozens of remarkable varieties, including one bird that collided with a limousine before learning how to fly again. 25,000 first printing.

A charming story of Mozart and his pet starling, along with a natural history of the bird. On May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling who sang (an improved version of!) the theme from his Piano Concerto Number 17 in G to him. Knowing a kindred spirit when he met one, Mozart wrote "That was wonderful" in his journal and took the bird home to be his pet. For three years Mozart and his family enjoyed the uniquely delightful company of the starling until one fitful April when the bird passed away. In 2013, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Crow Planet, rescued her own starling, Carmen, who has become a part of her family. In Mozart's Starling, Haupt explores the unlikely bond between one of history's most controversial characters and one of history's most notoriously disliked birds. Part natural history, part story, Mozart's Starlingwill delight readers as they learn about language, music, and the secret world of starlings. A charming story of Mozart and his pet starling, along with a natural history of the bird. On May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling who sang (an improved version of!) the theme from his Piano Concerto Number 17 in G to him. Knowing a kindred spirit when he met one, Mozart wrote "That was wonderful" in his journal and took the bird home to be his pet. For three years Mozart and his family enjoyed the uniquely delightful company of the starling until one April morning when the bird passed away. In 2013, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Crow Planet, rescued her own starling, Carmen, who has become a part of her family. In Mozart's Starling, Haupt explores the unlikely bond between one of history's most controversial characters and one of history's most notoriously disliked birds. Part natural history, part story, Mozart's Starlingwill delight readers as they learn about language, music, and the secret world of starlings.

A longtime editor of Osprey Publishing and author of The Last Valley reflects on his 15-year relationship with a Tawny Owl, an unlikely companionship marked by their incredulous neighbors, books and unique care challenges. 25,000 first printing.

Thus begins the tale by Stephen Bodio, a lover of birds and nature, of the incredible connection between man and birds of prey. Falconry can be traced back over four thousand years and, as Bodio says, it is amazing that the practice did not die out soon afterward when its first adherents starved.

A leading hummingbird-rehabilitation therapist describes her work with dozens of remarkable varieties, including one bird that collided with a limousine before learning how to fly again. 25,000 first printing.

Reveals how passenger pigeons have become extinct and how no serious effort was made to protect this species that inspired awe in the likes of John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau, and James Fenimore Cooper until it was too late.