Birds, bees and a whole host of other flora and fauna that share Villager Jim's garden in the tiny Peak District village of Foolow are featured in his book of stunning colour photographs of the regular visitors to his garden. There are birds and deer and a dove in a bed of crocuses, frogs in a spring pond, close-ups of bees and bird chicks and jenny wren and a close up of a starling where all the dots are tiny heart shapes on his chest. Dierdre the bluetit pops by and lands on his mug, a goose waddles in, a mother duck and her tribe paddle off for a morning dip in the pond, dragonflies mate, Georgy flies into Jim's hand to collect mealworms, a tawny owl hides up a tree and the many birds fly onto the garden table to be photographed in close up by this genius nature lover. And there are rats and hares and cockerels and of the course the beloved Bobbin the robin and all manner of frozen chickens waddling about in the snow. 128pp. 24.8 x 17.8cm, full page colour photos throughout.

'Fizzing with fruity stories and yeasty historical tales' - Alice Roberts, the sub-title of the book is 'How an Ancient Craft Became a Way of Life' and the book is enormously fun and a BBC Radio Four Food Programme Book of the Year. Join James Crowden as he embarks on a journey to distil the ancient origins of cider, uncovering a rich culture and philosophy that has united farmer, maker and drinker for millennia. It has been at the heart of country life for hundreds of years, but the fascinating story of how this drink came into existence and why it became so deeply rooted in the nation's psyche has never been told. Crowden traces an elusive history stretching back to the ancient, myth-infused civilisations of the Mediterranean and the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan. He meets cider experts, farmers and historians and we read about monks, pirates and politicians who formed a pioneering and evangelical fan base. The nation's love affair with cider didn't fully blossom until after the Reformation when the thirst for knowledge about the drink was at its peak. This infatuation with the experimentation would lead to remarkable innovations and the creation of a 'sparkling cider', a technique that predated Dom Pérignon's Champagne by 40 years. And today Crowden meets the next generation of cider makers and unearths a unique philosophy that has been shared through the ages and new ways to produce this golden drink enjoyed by so many. It is a story of our country through the culture, craft and consumption of our most iconic rural drink. 448 pages, paperback with fairly large print and illus.

Set contains Villager Jim's Bobbin Robin and Villager Jim's Garden Wildlife. Buy both and make further savings. Hardbacks.

An enhanced facsimile published in partnership with Oxford University Museum of Natural History and sub-titled 'Jones's Icones Complete'. A key moment for natural history was the foundation of the Linnean Society of London in 1788. The Oxford Museum holds correspondence between William Jones and Sir James Smith discussing the founding of the society, reproduced here, and the Icones themselves, 13 paintings and sketches and almost 1,300 illustrations of butterflies and moths from the seven original volumes, all painted in exceptional detail in colour and at around life size. Far more than an Enlightenment curiosity, the paintings were used as the basis for the description of 231 new species in the third volume of the 1793 monograph Entomologia systematica. Fabricius was the leading entomology student of Linnaeus and this monograph greatly expanded the earlier accounts of Lepidoptera species. Icones constitutes part of the foundations of butterfly taxonomy and systematics. This early documentation of the global butterfly fauna also carries important messages for conservation biology at a time when repeated studies are showing that global insect abundance has declined by as much as 45% in half a century. In Europe alone, grassland butterflies have experienced a 40% decline in the past 30 years down to habitat loss and chemical pollution. Significantly, Icones documents a pre-industrial butterfly world and several of the species illustrated are extinct. The masterpiece is now available together with a reproduction of the original French frontispiece to volume two entitled 'Papiliones Helicon II'. We are taken back to those drawers of butterflies, moths and other insects pierced by a pin in large wooden display boxes in museums, but it is the sheer beauty of these botanical plates, page after page in full colour full page together with distribution maps, texts and explanation of the butterfly species from around the world from Africa to Vietnam which will delight. With full listing of Jones's Iconotypes, Index of Butterfly Species and To the Article. A Thames & Hudson quality 2021 first edition, satin pagemarker, truly heavyweight at over 2kg and 688 pages, 19 x 26.5cm.
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Everyday ways to find and lose yourself in 'nature', this is a beautiful book brim-full with accessible and inventive ideas and a practical guide to fostering calm. Expand and retreat. Grow and disappear. Find and lose yourself in nature. We have all heard the advice that to improve our wellbeing we need to reconnect with nature and tune in to the natural world. But how do we find it? The book is an invitation to journey into nature, no matter how urban your environment or green your neighbourhood is. It has projects, wisdom and ideas to set new inventions and discover new paths 'with plenty of planning and pauses to let the magic take effect.' Make new rituals, learn new skills through creative projects, seeing things differently because new knowledge is key to positive change, push yourself and try two or three different suggestions each week or month and celebrate your victories, even the tiny ones. There is plenty on gardening, microgreens, saving sickly houseplants, befriending an elderly tree; have a mindful adventure in your neighbourhood and embrace getting lost, dissolve in water and experience a silky, cool water seeping into every nook and crease of your skin; create an imaginary landscape, discover urban birding, recipes for soaks and sprays, aromatherapy cleanses, a conversation with silence, conjuring mood with scent, bundle dyeing with food waste like avocados or onion skin, dry marigold flowers, carrot tops, rosemary or hibiscus tea or collecting fresh petals, leaves, or berries and stems to add colour and shapes to your dyed fabric. Beautifully designed and illustrated and packed with information to dip into. 188pp.

Myrmecologist Edward Wilson, who has won two Pulitzer prizes for his scientific writing, has created an absorbing account of his lifelong interest in ants, partly in the hope of encouraging aspiring scientists to specialise in the insect world, where most of the 15,000 ant species discovered so far still await further study. Ants organise themselves into societies of a complexity that rivals that of humans, though the details are very different, for instance all the ants that are active in the social life of colonies are females. Adult male ants do no work and their only function is insemination. Ants are the most warlike of animals and many eat their dead and injured in battle. When forming an army they start with the oldest, sending their old ladies into the front line and continuing down the age hierarchy. The author started studying insects as a boy when he was given a microscope for Christmas, and when a horde of ants marched three or four abreast into his backyard he decided ants were to be his life's work. A different mode of hunting is the swarm-raiding tactic of the species Eciton burchelli, in which tightly packed ants fan out. When they encounter a crevice, the leaders link jaws and legs to form a bridge. Dolichoderus imitator, by comparison, is an unaggressive, timid ant which the author encountered in the Amazon, and they ran away so quickly that it was difficult to get a specimen. Social insects communicate by taste and smell, or in scientific terms by pheromones, chemical substances passed back and forth by individuals. Ants are the virtuosos of chemical communication, and you can test this by putting a drop of sugar near a nest and then watching the result. Together with other entomologists the author has developed a system which allows him to interpret the meaning of some of these pheromones. 230pp, black and white illustrations.

Brown's hilarious, crude, and sometimes not-safe-for-work captions, combined with photos of owls squinting, gawking, snuggling, and sleeping make the perfect partnership. This book includes the public's funny photos submitted to his website of owls with half closed eyes and heads lolling plus never-before-seen owl facts, parables, and a field guide for recognizing your very own hungover owl. With captions like "Ugh. The good weather only makes it so much worse" and "On a scale from zero to hungover, I am dead," drinkers everywhere will recognize their own forgotten pain and delight in its humour. 160 page paperback.

A hardback A5 notebook containing 128 lined pages and a ribbon marker. Cheerful, stylised design of flying puffins on the cover, black, white with orange beaks and webbed feet in formation of two sizes coming towards the viewer. Did you know that a group of puffins can be referred to as a burrow, circus, colony, puffinry, loomery or improbability? You do now! 15.24 x 21.34cm.

Cheerful, stylised design of flying puffins on the cover, black, white with orange beaks and webbed feet in formation of two sizes coming towards the viewer. Ideal for shopping lists, reminders or even jotting down which birds you've spotted in your garden, this flip-top notepad has 128pp tear-away blank pages and a diddy yellow pencil secured with an elastic closure. 9.84 x 13.97cm.

With contributions from around the world this heavyweight quality publication reproduces in full page colour approximately 150 of the finest bird photography from Instagram's inspiring photographer community. We love birds but they can be tricky to photograph. Enter the expert avian photographers who are uploading astounding captures of beauty and wit to be viewed on your phone screen. Posting from all corners of the globe, this new generation has raised the bar with some of their technically brilliant, characterful portraits. Now renowned ornithologist David Allen Sibley features with anecdotes and technical details the name, location if known, and of course the Instagram account for each beautiful image. There is a short-toed Snake-Eagle and Indian Cobra captured in India outstaring each other, a Common Potoo, normally a nocturnal bird, sitting motionless on the top of a broken-off tree, her fluffy chicks staring up at her, dozens of bathing birds which turn into 'adorable punk rockers' when wet, an Australian pelican using his pouch not only to contain fish but toss them around so they are easier to swallow, in a huge circular stretch of skin. 'A face only a mother could love! This Eurasian Coot chick was expecting to be fed by its mother.' A bit cruel, yes it has a bright red head, but fluffy feathers and his mother loves him. There are ducks and swans and turkeys with beautiful plumage and bright red berry-like dots on their faces, osprey and blue jay, flamingos and their chicks, a fiery-throated hummingbird from Costa Rica, indigo bunting from Canada, a cormorant full of personality, bright blue eye and beak wide open, mating pairs embracing each other like the royal tern, king penguin, common murre and northern gannet, a Roseate spoonbill in flight in Sarasota, wings like beautiful pink outstretched fans and a resplendent Quetzal with its bright green plumage, incredibly long sweeping tail and bright yellow beak captured in flight. 192pp, 19.7 x 23.8cm. A beautiful Abrams publication.
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