Book advice

[life through a lens]

I'm just off to the library to pick up a couple of books on animal behaviour and was wondering if anyone can suggest titles of other books that are worth a read.

I'm basically looking to extend my knowledge (shouldn't be difficult !!) of most things but have a particular interest in birds, dragonflies/damselflies, butterflies and would like to do some reading on countryside management.

This is probably very vague but will happily take any suggestions.

Thanks

Olly

[Alan]

Your best bet would be to do a search on amazon, just to see what titles there are.

For wildlife management, try this one: Managing Habitats for Conservation. Sutherland and Hill. I've got this, it was recommended by a forum member. Good indepth stuff. I think you may struggle finding some of these types of books in the library though, but you never know!

[nicole]

For countryside management I would recommend the BTCV handbooks as a good starting point and the good news is that you can view them online http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/index

[aeshna]

Hi life through a lens (great name),

try this one, its been around a while but when I had a clear out on ebay it was one I kept tight hold of


Habitat Conservation for Insects, a neglected green issue
by R. Fry and D. Lonsdale (Eds)

ISBN = 0 900054 52 2
Price (including P&P) = HB £12.00 in the UK
Published = 1991
262 pages


This is an excellent book, it covers all aspects of Insect Habitat conservation in the UK in good detail. It is well set out with a discussion of, and management recommendations for, all the common habitat types in the UK. It is well referenced, has an excellent series of appendices, including advice on setting up and maintaining a wildlife pond, and on monitoring aquatic invertebrates for water quality control. This is an easily readable book and personally I think it will be enjoyable and thought provoking reading for anyone with an interest in the Countryside, Conservation and or Entomology, it should also be available in every secondary school and university in the UK at least. The really nice thing about this book, apart from the wealth of information it contains and the practical attitude it adopts, is that though the lepidoptera feature strongly, because of the input of people like Alan Stubbs they do not dominate the scene completely way they do in some other insect conservation literature. This book was written basically for the British market, and therefore all its reference material relates to British insects, however it will be a valuable resource to anyone managing temperate habitats in the Northern hemi-sphere.
Highly Recommended


(review not by aeshna but I agree with it)

Cheers


Aeshna

[Feathers]

Habitat Management for Invertebrates: A Practical Handbook by P Kirby is a great guide to hands-on management techniques

http://www.nhbs.com/title.php?tefno=17072

An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology by JR Krebs and NB Davies is a standard university text that served me well (lots on bird behaviour especially)

http://www.nhbs.com/title.php?tefno=19630

Am a big fan of the Readers Digest series too (great once you've ID'd something and want additional species info) and they're currently going cheap...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0...e=UTF8&s=books

Also 'The Living Countryside Series' (also Readers Digest) was a fantastic series published in the 80s but I always see copies of these (6 vols in all) in charity shops for a couple of quid.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/READERS-DIGEST...QQcmdZViewItem

And as Nicole rightly says BTCV handbooks are smashing... though I am a little biased here.

Cheers
Chris

[life through a lens]

Thanks all, list been started and will start trying to source those books.

Online resources are great, means I can read non-related material thats slightly less obvious than a book !!

Incedentally stopped in on an Oxfam book shop at lunch and picked up a couple of bird books for under a tenner, bargain .

Next stop Ebay then Amazon.

Olly