By Stephen Moss
Stephen Moss's selection of dad or mum 'Birdwatch' columns varieties a desirable photograph of 1 man's birding lifestyles: from early coot-watching as a tender boy, via teenage cycle journeys to Dungeness, to grownup travels around the globe as a television manufacturer operating all over from the Gambia to Antarctica. Drawing on approximately two decades of columns for the parent, Stephen covers neighborhood, nationwide and overseas birding encounters. From the (varying) pleasure and peace of his selected pursuit, to the transforming into uncertainties posed via weather swap, the writer brings an enthusiasm and sincerity to the topic that may energise even the main fair-weather of birdwatchers. This stylish paperback version includes a actually appealing disguise linocut representation via Robert Gillmor, the doyen of fowl artists whose jackets grace all of the illustrious Collins New Naturalist volumes.
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Additional resources for This Birding Life: The Best of the Guardian's Birdwatch
Example text
They breathe air with their lungs and suckle their young with milk. They even have belly-buttons! Bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus , Whales close their blowhole when under water. As they surface they release a spout of air—a blow—before taking another breath. BLOWHOLES No whale, dolphin, or porpoise can breathe under water. They breathe air— but not through a nose and not through their mouth. Whales and dolphins choose when they want to take a breath. This means they cannot go to sleep. Instead, they shut down half their brain at a time, resting one half, then the other.
They include lemurs, bushbabies, and lorises. MAMMALS I like to dance and leap. Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) is a species of lemur that spends lots of time on the ground as well as in trees. It takes great strides and springs through the air at speed as if it were dancing. Babies have to hold on tight! u LONG FINGER The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) lives in Madagascar. It taps on trees with its long middle finger then listens for insects moving under the bark. If anything is there, it rips off the bark with its teeth and hooks out the victims with its finger.
WELL-DEVELOPED NOSES Most insectivores, such as desmans, have poor eyesight but a good sense of smell, with snouts ideal for sniffing out insects. Aardvarks also have a good sense of smell. They have a piglike snout and nostrils surrounded with hair to filter out dust. FACTFILE MOLES ■ Moles live in Europe, Asia, and North America. They live in underground tunnels that they dig with their powerful front legs. Their eyesight is poor but they have an acute sense of smell. ■ Hedgehogs live only in Europe, Africa, and Asia.