Author: John GouldPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Birds
Languages : en
Pages : 1204
Book Description
The Birds of Australia
Birdman's Wife
Author: Melissa AshleyPublisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 192547528X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 467
Book Description
A woman overshadowed by history steps back into the light . . . Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. The Birdman’s Wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man. Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover, helpmate, and mother to an ever-growing brood of children. In a golden age of discovery, her artistry breathed wondrous life into hundreds of exotic new species, including Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches. In The Birdman’s Wife, the naïve young girl who falls in love with a demanding and ambitious genius comes into her own as a woman, an artist and a bold adventurer who defies convention by embarking on a trailblazing expedition to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife. In this indelible portrait, an extraordinary woman overshadowed by history steps back into the light where she belongs.
John Gould, Bird Man
Author: Maureen LambournePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artists
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
Imperial Dreams
Author: Tim GallagherPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439191530
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
A decade ago, Tim Gallagher was one of the rediscoverers of the legendary ivory-billed woodpecker, which most scientists believed had been extinct for more than half a century—now Gallagher once again hits the trail, journeying deep into Mexico’s savagely beautiful Sierra Madre Occidental, home to rich wildlife, as well as to Mexican drug cartels, in a perilous quest to locate the most elusive bird in the world—the imperial woodpecker. The imperial woodpecker’s trumpetlike calls and distinctive hammering on massive pines once echoed through the high forests. Two feet tall, with deep black plumage, a brilliant snow-white shield on its back, and a crimson crest, the imperial woodpecker had largely disappeared fifty years ago, though reports persist of the bird still flying through remote mountain stands. In an attempt to find and protect the imperial woodpecker in its last habitat, Gallagher is guided by a map of sightings of this natural treasure of the Sierra Madre, bestowed on him by a friend on his deathbed. Charged with continuing the quest of a line of distinguished naturalists, including the great Aldo Leopold, Gallagher treks through this mysterious, historically untamed and untamable territory. Here, where an ancient petroglyph of the imperial can still be found, Geronimo led Apaches in their last stand, William Randolph Hearst held a storied million-acre ranch, and Pancho Villa once roamed, today ruthless drug lords terrorize residents and steal and strip the land. Gallagher’s passionate quest takes a harrowing turn as he encounters armed drug traffickers, burning houses, and fleeing villagers. His mission becomes a life-and-death drama that will keep armchair adventurers enthralled as he chases truth in the most dangerous of habitats.
Upside Down World
Author: Penny OlsenPublisher: National Library Australia
ISBN: 0642277060
Category : Amphibians
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Eurocentric perceptions of natural history led to the flora and fauna of the new colony of New South Wales being viewed as deficient and inferior. The swans of the colony were black and eagles white, birds built shell-strewn avenues of sticks to cavort in and parrots walked on the ground. The mammals carried their young in a pouch and there were furred animals that laid eggs. This 'miscellany of the curious' fuelled the rage for Australian natural history amongst the upper classes of Europe, bringing income and, occasionally, fame to its collectors and documenters. On the ground, in the colony, it contributed to great change for the animals and, in some cases, extinction. In Upside Down World author Penny Olsen documents how our scientific knowledge evolved, using collectors' and naturalists' journals to enhance her stories.
Australia's First Naturalists
Author: Penny OlsenPublisher: National Library of Australia
ISBN: 0642279373
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Would Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson have ever crossed the Blue Mountains without the help of the local Aboriginal people? The invaluable role of local guides in this event is rarely recognised. As silent partners, Aboriginal Australians gave Europeans their first views of iconic animals, such as the Koala and Superb Lyrebird, and helped to unravel the mystery of the egg-laying mammals: the Echidna and Platypus. Well into the twentieth century, Indigenous people were routinely engaged by collectors, illustrators and others with an interest in Australia's animals. Yet this participation, if admitted at all, was generally barely acknowledged. However, when documented, it was clearly significant. Penny Olsen and Lynette Russell have gathered together Aboriginal peoples' contributions to demonstrate the crucial role they played in early Australian zoology. The writings of the early European naturalists clearly describe the valuable knowledge of the Indigenous people of the habits of Australia's bizarre (to a European) fauna. 'Australia's First Naturalists' is invaluable for those wanting to learn more about our original inhabitants' contribution to the collection, recognition and classification of Australia's unique fauna. It heightens our appreciation of the previously unrecognised complex knowledge of Indigenous societies.
Charles Darwin's Life with Birds
Author: Clifford B. FrithPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190240237
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 521
Book Description
Focuses exclusively on Darwin the ornithologist, not on biographical aspects of Darwin's life
Gardens of the Colonists
Author: Vivian Roswell LudgatePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gardens
Languages : en
Pages : 16
Book Description
John Gould's Extinct and Endangered Birds of Australia
Author: Sue TaylorPublisher: National Library Australia
ISBN: 0642277656
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
In 1838, John Gould, the 'father of Australian ornithology' visited Australia with the intention of gathering material for his great work on Australian birds. In the resulting publication, The Birds of Australia: In Seven Volumes (1848), and the accompanying Supplement (1869), Gould named, for the first time, no fewer than 32 Australian bird species. Gould's words about the Norfolk Island Kaka were prophetic-the last bird of its kind died in a cage in London in 1851. Since then, a number of other species illustrated in The Birds of Australia have become extinct and others are now facing extinction. John Gould's Extinct and Endangered Birds of Australia features 59 plates of birds from Gould's eight-volume work, birds that today are threatened or that no longer exist. Featuring exquisite full-colour lithographs reproduced from the National Library of Australia's copy of The Birds of Australia, this book gives an insight into the history of each bird's European discovery, as well as its subsequent fortunes or misfortunes.
John Gould's Extinct and Endangered Mammals of Australia
Author: Dr. Fred FordPublisher: National Library of Australia
ISBN: 064227861X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
How poignant it is to look at some of Gould's beautiful images of our animals and know that some are no longer with us, and some are fighting for their lives? In this book, author Fred Ford compares Gould’s world, and the world that the animals live in at that time, with the world today. John Gould’s Extinct and Endangered Mammals of Australia includes 46 Australian mammal species that, today, are threatened or extinct and that were portrayed in the lavish colour plates in John Gould’s 1863 publication, The Mammals of Australia. Each animal ‘opener spread’ begins with a Gould plate accompanied by ‘At a Glance’—a very short summary; the conservation status according to the EPBC (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation) list, the species names, a map of its former and current distribution and sites of reintroduction; and a timeline of the species history since European colonisation. Accompanying the pictures are accounts of the animals as they lived in the relatively untouched Australia that John Gould knew, and evidence of the attitudes of European settlers towards the native fauna. The author provides the reader with fascinating, and often poignant, material and stories of what would be considered today as shameful behaviour and attitudes towards Australia’s native fauna. In this book are not only sobering stories of the fate of these animals after Gould’s time, but also success stories of reintroducing species to places, ridding areas of introduced pests, and preserving habitat.