A complete guide to orchids and their cultivation, these flamboyant, intriguing, beautiful and exotic plants have evolved to become the largest family of plants in the world. This classic book written by two of the world's leading orchid authorities and newly updated helps you identify, choose and display these delightful flowers successfully. It offers a round-the-world tour of the range of tropical and temperate habitats in which orchids are found and explains main orchid types, how early explorers discovered the first tropical orchids and started an orchid craze that continues today. It explains orchid botany and nomenclature, inspirational ideas for growing these plants indoors whether in glass tanks and baskets or on trees and stones, as well as growing orchids outdoors. There is information on basic tools and equipment, compost mixes, potting and mounting, propagation, feeding, watering and light control and dealing with pests and diseases. The Orchid Directory explains their natural habitat, size, flowering time and growing requirements, and all the main genera are covered from Cymbidium to Dendrobium, from Phalaenopsis to Phragmipedium as well as a selection of specialist orchids. There is also an easy-to-use glossary. On each grand very glossy bright white heavyweight page are between one and four colour photographs, many in close up, exhibiting the range of colours of pinks and orange and white and mottles and veins and patterns and blotches and spots, and shapes and textures, standing clear of the foliage and how flowers are produced at various times of the year, blooming again the following year. In 2009, the authors were jointly awarded the Westonbirt Orchid Medal for Outstanding Literary Achievement on the Subject of Orchids. The final inside back cover photograph is so close up you can almost feel the spongy iridescent silver sparkling texture of the pin spots on the beautiful white flower photographed. 256 very large pages, colour.
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The updated edition, this is an excellent field guide to the mammals of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with an overview and history, biology and life cycle. Organised by Terrestrial Mammals like squirrels and dormice, beavers, hedgehogs and bats, wild cats and foxes, deer, pigs and wild boar, even reindeer and introduced ephemerals like the Siberian chipmunk, striped skunk and Asian short-clawed otter. In Marine Mammals there are seals, whales, dolphins, beluga and narwhal, the tusked males of which are unmistakable but there have been no confirmed sightings in Britain since 1949. For each entry there are details of length, height, blow, dive sequence, behaviour, weight, breathing behaviour, habitat, population and status, food and signs including tracks, droppings and nests and coloured distribution map. 126 mammal species recorded, 500 superb colour photos. Stunning colour photography in this heavyweight large softback, 328pp.

More than 450 breeds of horses are recognised in the world and 567 breeds, types or populations of horses, including types that are not truly breeds, are described here with 600 superb colour illustrations showcasing them. The treatment of breeds is organised by country within broader geographical regions of Northern and Southern, Western and Easten Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Far East and Southeast Asia, North, West, East and Southern Africa, North America, Central America and the Caribbean, South America and the horses of Oceania. Each has measurements of weight and height, distribution, origins and history, character and attributes, uses, and current status, anatomy and physiology, variations in breed and modern equestrian practices. The writing style is refreshingly straight forward, and the clever design and handsome illustrations of this unique single volume encyclopaedia will serve nicely both on the reference shelf for all artists, breeders and nature lovers. Incredibly detailed, there is for example on page 15 an introduction to horses' coats ranging from black and mealy black, bay and bay dun, palomino, café au lait, spotted, roan, iron grey, pinto, dapple black and white, brindled and of course white, cream, grey, chocolate. We see the characteristics unique to horses like larger eyes, long translucent hairs called vibrissae, small horny growths which are vestiges of a toe that disappeared during evolution on the inner side of the leg known as ergots, and curly horses with supple, wavy manes and tails found in rustic breeds of ancient origins. There is also a look at the main equestrian disciplines, the feral population and rare horses where there are fewer than 5,000 individuals in the world and very rare horses where fewer than 1,000 individuals are alive. But best of all are the spectacular colour artworks throughout, many full page with the descriptions to the left in colour and line art, and many with background settings or carriages and riders, full page beautiful contemporary colour photographs such as a Scikós rider in traditional costume and a Nonius horse, Hungary. Extra large size and heavyweight in quality, a Princeton University Press publication 22.9 x 5 x 28cm. 536pp.
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Lars Johnsson lives on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. He is an artist, author and ornithologist, and started painting birds at the age of four, and is celebrated as one of the world's leading wildlife artists. With him we meet the Chiff-Chaff, Bullfinch, Great Black-backed Gulls in stormy waters, Eurasian Wigeons and Curlews sunbathing, buzzards and crows, Golden Eagle, Greenfinch and the all-knowing White Gyrfalcon captured masterfully in watercolour. Plus elder-flowered orchid, trees and foliage, sky and sea as authentic locations for his avian subjects. His unique style is based on a deep understanding of birds and an extraordinary power of observation, and his paintings are executed directly in or based on sketches and studies made in the field. This gorgeous book uses not only the thoughts of the artist himself, and his descriptions of those habitats where he finds most of his inspiration - the Sea, Shorelines, Coastal Meadows and Arctic tundras - but also essays by a leading wildlife sculptor to convey something about the brilliance of Jonsson's work. Here are his early works, sketchbooks, watercolours, oil paintings, lithographs and ornithological projects to dazzle readers with his genius. Here too are descriptions of how he manages to capture his subjects so that they appear to leap off the page. We loved his piece about trying to portray the Wood Sandpiper. Apparently, this bird is constantly busy foraging, and usually hides its feet in the mud. It is also a challenge to get it to show its face and reveal its special facial expressions. 192 pages 30.5cm x 24.5cm in living colour.

Best known for his nonsense verses such as "The Owl and the Pussycat", Edward Lear was a talented natural history artist at a time when knowledge of the natural world was expanding rapidly following the work of explorers such as Charles Darwin. He published his comic poems under a pseudonym, regarding painting and natural history studies as his real work. A self-taught artist who became instructor to Queen Victoria, Lear started depicting birds as illustrations to limericks, learning artistic techniques from his much older sister Ann, who had a small income from commercial art. Supported by the newly formed Zoological Society, Lear's book on Parrots in 1832 was the first in English to focus on a single family of birds, earning him widespread praise for accuracy and originality. The book's colour plates are spectacular, rivalling the more famous ones by artists such as Audubon in America. Lear's illustrations were popularised by the new invention of lithographic printing which gave his parrot monograph wide circulation and caused a stir among naturalists. As a member of a vibrant British natural history community Lear knew Darwin's illustrator John Gould, and the author speculates that he might have assisted Gould with the creation of Darwin's plates. Another naturalist, Lord Derby, kept a large number of Australian mammals at Knowsley Hall, where Lear was a frequent visitor, and among the mammals he painted there were many from Australia, including a wallaby, possum, and kangaroos. In Lear's later career he travelled to the Mediterranean and middle east and became renowned for his landscapes. This fascinating study covers not only the work of Edward Lear but also artists he influenced such as Beatrix Potter or contemporary natural history painter Elizabeth Butterworth. Foreword by David Attenborough. 225pp, softback, 18.4 x 26cm, more than 200 of Lear's strikingly beautiful illustrations of animals, plants, and landscapes.

A pleasure to read and as uplifting as listening to a blackbird or robin in full voice, birdsong is woven into our culture, emotions and landscapes. Smyth asks what it is about birdsong that we so love and explores the myriad ways in which it has influenced literature, music, science and our very ideas of what it means to be British. His nuanced investigation shows that what we hear says as much about us, our dreams and desires, as it does about the birds and their songs. With a magpie-like curiosity for his subject that considers East-End bird catching alongside the Romantics and current bioacoustics research, Smyth has taught himself to hear and for us to listen a little closer to birdsong. He includes curious and apt descriptions, mixing history, science and personal anecdotes in a blended chorus of tasting notes. 190pp, line art.

Award winning photographer Art Wolfe has worked in hundreds of locations and this is THE book of his career recording with great sensitivity a rapidly vanishing natural world. He has taken an estimated two million images in his lifetime and travels nearly nine months out of the year photographing new projects and giving inspirational presentations to educational, conservation and spiritual groups. In 1978 he published his first book 'Indian Baskets of the Northwest Coast' and worked for the world's top magazines such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, Audubon, GEO and Terre Sauvage. Magazines all over the world publish his photographs and stories and he is known for having the broadest range of excellence of any nature photographer. His wildlife portraits show cormorants sitting being petted by Chinese men on a gaslit raft at night, the Milky Way in spectacular colour behind two boulders and the colourful beads and rainbow colours of the costumes worn by the Maasai Mara tribespeople. An adult male lion stares vacantly into his camera, a plains zebra amidst white bearded wildebeest, greater and lesser flamingos pictured in Kenya and gemsbok African elephant, springbok and zebras all pictured together in the Etosha National Park, Namibia. There are colourful carpets, Dogon hunters and a spectacular series of gatefold pages including Moroccan architecture and women husking corn, landscapes of unbelievable beauty such as the Antarctic Peninsula, blue glaciers in Iceland, colourful wild flowers and snowy owlets in Alaska, a penguin stranded on a small iceberg, Arctic wolves in Canada, polar bears and cubs in Manitoba Canada. The book is organised by Mountain, Polar and Subpolar, Desert and Savannah, Ocean and Island and Tropical and Subtropical. Wolfe's images take us through the world's ecosystems and geographical regions in a vivid display of the fragility and interconnectivity of life on Earth and the book is undeniably breathtaking, an elegantly crafted masterpiece that will thrill collectors of nature photography. 396 enormous pages with dozens of gatefold pullouts, 28 x 3.8 x 35.5cm, spectacular colour.
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Hannah grew up loving birds and her parents taught her about the wonders of the British countryside from a young age. Years later she moved to Ghana for her husband's work. Without a job or purpose of her own, and striving to belong in the rural grasslands far from home, she felt any sense of normal life and connection falling away. It was the birds that offered a glimmer of hope and, fuelled by their quiet nature, her book is the raw and uplifting account of Hannah's unexpected bonds with two wild birds that she rescued, hand-raised, and released back into the wild. 'My reward was one of purpose, tinted with magic. There he was, a wild bird, born from a little egg high up in a grass nest between the dark leaves of a mango tree. Now he was with me, comforted by the beat of my heart and the sound of my voice. A wild creature in the palm of my hand...' A memoir brimming with determination and compassion exploring our instinctive connection to nature and a timely reminder that wildlife can provide solace in the most unexpected ways. 290pp.

Sponsored by the WWF and based on a Netflix original documentary series, this is the official children's book to accompany it. It is a glorious visual celebration of the natural world combining extraordinary photography from the series with stunning illustrations from acclaimed artist Richard Jones. In spectacular close-up detail we appreciate the humpback whale which roams the open ocean, a fox in a Ukrainian forest, pelicans in Australia, cheetahs hunting wildebeest, an elephant reaching for ana leaves and a desert elephant family, plus learning about our deserts and grasslands, wild meadows, anchovies and fancy fishing and all about our coastal seas, jungles, frozen worlds, forest and fresh water. There is a useful glossary and some images about filming behind the scenes of the series and a beautiful colour map of our planet's different habitats. 96 very large pages packed with colour, 21 x 30cm.

Sub-titled 'Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present', this is a moving account of Madagascar is told by a researcher who has spent over 50 years investigating the mysteries of this remarkable island. A place of change, a biodiversity hotspot, and the fourth largest island on the planet, Madagascar has been home to a spectacular parade of animals from giant flightless birds and giant tortoises on the ground, to agile lemurs leaping through the treetops. Some species live on and many have vanished forever. Spanning everything from botany to geology to climatology and the binding of the Malagasy people and their relationship to the landscape, Madagascar's forests have expanded and contracted in response to shifting climates and the impact of human activities during the last thousand years or so. Today it is a microcosm of global trends - what happens there in the decades ahead could provide helpful insights into the battle to turn the tide of the environmental crisis now sweeping the world. Alison Richard takes us on a journey through space and time, from Madagascar's ancient origins as a landlocked region of Gondwana and its emergence as an island, to the modern-day developments that make the survival of its plants and animals increasingly uncertain. She weaves together scientific evidence with her own experiences and captures the magic as well as the tensions that swirl around this island nation. The text is peppered with interesting photographs, a table of major national actions concerning the environment since 1970, plus 31 beautiful colour plates including the stunning blue Babakoto singing and the almost human shape of the Baobab tree standing sentinel. 342pp.