Tits, Nuthatches and Treecreepers

This guide covers all 110 of the world's species of tits, nuthatches and creepers. The Parulidae ("true" tits), Remizidae (penduline tits) and Aegithalidae (long-tailed tits) form the bulk of the book (78 species), with a further 24 species of nuthatch and eight creepers. The text covers each species under a number of headings: identification, sex and age, voice, distribution and movements, habitat, population, habits, breeding biology, description, movements, geographical variation, relationships, and references. Simon Harrap is co-author of "Birdwatching in Britain", and co-author of the forthcoming "Helm Identification Guides to Robins and Chats and Thrushes". David Quinn co-illustrated "New World Warblers" and is a winner of the "British Birds Bird Illustrator of the Year" competition.

Titmice (Worldlife Library)

Few garden birds have contributed so much to the rising popularity of birds in general than members of the titmice family. Their boldness, attractiveness, and agility has endeared them to countless armchair bird watchers. For nature and animal fans.

The Great Tit (Hamlyn Species Guides) 

Andrew Gosler. The Great Tit is the largest tit found in Europe and has adapted its feeding, breeding and territorial behaviour to several habitats. Whether singing to establish its territory, displaying to attract a mate or chase off a rival, or feeding in a flock in winter, this small passerine is a fascinating subject for study.

The Blue Tit (Shire natural history) 

• Publisher : Shire Publications (1 April 1987)
• Language : English
• Paperback : 24 pages
• ISBN-10 : 0852637160
• ISBN-13 : 978-0852637166
• Dimensions : 21.03 x 15.01 x 0.28 cm
  
  

The Blue Tit

Sporting a mix of blue, yellow, white, green and black, the unmistakable Blue Tit reflects the colours of a planet affected by a burgeoning human population. Fortunately, Blue Tits are adapting well to modern humanity, taking advantage of our propensity to feed birds in our gardens and provide boxes for them to nest in. In turn, this feisty little species provides an excellent model for biological research. This book is the result of a personal quest by author Martyn Stenning to bring together a range of discoveries into one accessible volume. The Blue Tit begins by inviting readers into the intimate lives of these birds as they attempt to reproduce, describing the many challenges they face when rearing their offspring. The story moves on to the fluid state of Blue Tit classification across the native Palearctic range, before progressing into population structure, lifetime ecology and an exploration of factors that determine breeding success. It culminates with an in-depth look at research over the years, followed by a selection of personal anecdotes and an overview of Blue Tit appearances in folklore and poetry. This book provides a definitive record of the biology and ecology of one of our most popular, intelligent and charismatic birds.

Black-Capped Chickadee (Wild Bird Guides) 

 A frequent visitor at the backyard feeder, the Black-capped Chickadee is one of the most familiar and popular of birds. It is found in an unusually large geographic area- from coast to coast in the northern two-thirds of the United States and in much of Canada.
This book is the first comprehensive synthesis of published information about this tiny, tough bird, with special attention given to such close relatives as the Carolina Chickadee and the European Willow Tit. Drawing on many of her own observations, Susan M. Smith covers common study techniques, diet and foraging, communication and displays, and the birds' annual cycle in terms of ecology and social behaviour. She deals with aspects of chickadee physiology, explaining how they manage to survive harsh winter weather, and she discusses natural predators, population dynamics, and the most interesting areas for future research." Studying chickadees can be addictive." she writes, " Ive been hooked for years."
This attractive book is accessible to any serious birder, and it also offers a wealth of supporting figures and tables useful to researchers.

Ecology and Behavior of Chickadees and Titmice

Chickadees and titmice are among the most popular birds in North America, due in large part to their readiness to use bird feeders, to nest in urban gardens, and even to be trained to take food from people's hands. These attributes have also made them (and their Eurasian tit counterparts) perhaps the most intensively studied bird family in the world. Long-term research in Europe has yielded some of the most comprehensive data on the impact of global warming on the breeding ecology of birds. Chickadees have amongst the best-studied and most complex vocal behaviour of any bird species, displaying one of the closest analogies to human sentence structure in the animal kingdom in their familiar chick-a-dee call. The social dominance hierarchies commonly witnessed in the form of squabbling at winter feeders are some of most stable and closely studied, and have huge impacts on controlling the lives of these small birds. Their food-storing behaviour, and the brain and physiological mechanisms controlling this, has contributed significantly to our wider understanding of spatial orientation. In recent years, these birds have also been used as model species for investigating topics as diverse as inter-species hybridization, the impacts of forest fragmentation and complex systems of communication. In short, chickadees and titmice have contributed enormously to our understanding of a myriad of topics in ecology, behaviour and psychology.

British Tits (Collins New Naturalist Series)

Complete your New Naturalist collection with Harper Collins's facsimile versions, which are printed on demand. British Tits was first published in 1979.
Because of their ubiquity and apparent boldness, the tits are among the most easily observed, and the most popular, of all British birds. The Blue Tit, particularly, is an attractive and confident bird and will arrive at a well-stocked bird table, or at a bag of peanuts outside a window, within a few minutes of its being set out.
Curiously, little has been written about tits for the general naturalist. In British Tits, Christopher Perrins, who succeeded the late David Lack at the Edward Grey Institute of Ornithology in Oxford, sets out to remedy this omission. Dr. Perrins has spent many years studying these small birds in great detail and has himself made many important discoveries about their lives and behaviour.

The Nuthatches

Erik Matthysen. Illustrated by David Quinn
" I recommend this book to everyone interested in woodland birds, there is much to learn within its pages."...Mark Holling ,...Scottish Birds News

The Nuthatches are common and widespread birds throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but poorly studied until quite recently. Erik Mattysen's extensive studies, started in 1982,have done much to illuminate their ecology.

A detailed description of the ecology and behaviour of the Eurasian Nuthatch.
A fascinating species, one of only a few to rely largely on stored food for winter survival and to live as a territorial pair throughout the year.
The intricate dynamics of pair stability, territory size and the various strategies of floating, non-territory holders is the subject of an entire fascinating chapter.
The habitat fragmentation that has accompanied widespread disruption of woodland habitats everywhere has had a profound effect on territorial and social behaviour and this is dealt with at length.
Comparisons with the 23 other nuthatch species provide good general perspectives on biological species separation problems.
Insights into species set the scene for further work which may explain the links between species ecology and behaviour and their phylogeny and varying habitats.
288 Pages. Hardback

Der Mauerläufer. (wallcreeper)

Publisher : Westarp Wissenschaften (30 April 2004)

• Language : German
• ISBN-10 : 3894328371
• ISBN-13 : 978-3894328375

Sunbirds: A Guide to the Sunbirds, Spiderhunters, Sugarbirds and Flowerpeckers

The insect-eating sunbirds of the Old World are amongst the most glamorous of all bird families. This guide provides a comprehensive resource on the sunbirds and their allies, with 48 colour plates portraying all major plumage variations and many species depicted on typical food plants.

Shrikes: A Guide to the Shrikes of the World

Shrikes are a charismatic group of small- to medium-sized birds with striking raptor-hooked bills and a face mask that gives them the look of small, fierce highwaymen. Their Latin name, Lanius, means butcher, and shrikes are commonly known as butcher-birds for their habit of impaling insect prey on the thorns of bushes. This book is the first complete guide to the thirty-one species in three genera of the family Laniidae. Along with superb illustrations and range maps to facilitate successful field identification of all the shrike species, this useful book contains the most recent information on the entire shrike family.

Shrikes are found throughout most of the Palearctic region and North America. The smallest member of the family, Emin's Shrike, lives in central Africa and is about the size of a house finch or greenfinch. The populations of many shrike species--including the Great Grey Shrike, the Lesser Grey Shrike, the Woodchat Shrike, and the Red-backed Shrike in Europe and the Loggerhead Shrike in North America--have declined alarmingly, in large part due to changing farming methods. To conserve their numbers, all are now legally protected. This thorough book discusses terminology, classification, the general biology of shrikes, and conservation issues. Its baseline data on the shrikes of the world will provide a solid foundation for all future work on the species.