Taking Wing

Taking Wing PDF Author: Pat Shipman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684849658
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1861, just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, a scientist named Hermann von Meyer made an amazing discovery. Hidden in the Bavarian region of Germany was a fossil skeleton so exquisitely preserved that its wings and feathers were as obvious as its reptilian jaws and tail. This transitional creature offered tangible proof of Darwin's theory of evolution. Hailed as the First Bird, Archaeopteryx has remained the subject of heated debates for the last 140 years. Are birds actually living dinosaurs? Where does the fossil record really lead? Did flight originate from the "ground up" or "trees down"? Pat Shipman traces the age-old human desire to soar above the earth and to understand what has come before us. Taking Wing is science as adventure story, told with all the drama by which scientific understanding unfolds.

Taking Wing

Taking Wing PDF Author: Pat Shipman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684849658
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1861, just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, a scientist named Hermann von Meyer made an amazing discovery. Hidden in the Bavarian region of Germany was a fossil skeleton so exquisitely preserved that its wings and feathers were as obvious as its reptilian jaws and tail. This transitional creature offered tangible proof of Darwin's theory of evolution. Hailed as the First Bird, Archaeopteryx has remained the subject of heated debates for the last 140 years. Are birds actually living dinosaurs? Where does the fossil record really lead? Did flight originate from the "ground up" or "trees down"? Pat Shipman traces the age-old human desire to soar above the earth and to understand what has come before us. Taking Wing is science as adventure story, told with all the drama by which scientific understanding unfolds.

Isabel: Taking Wing

Isabel: Taking Wing PDF Author: Annie Dalton
Publisher: Turtleback Books
ISBN: 9780613462204
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dreaming of adventure, 12-year-old Isabel Campion faces a future that seems dull and limited. Then, on the road from London, Isabel survives an attack by brigands and ends up traveling with a band of actors who left London to escape the plague. When given new choices, Isabel must decide what direction her life will take. Illustrations.

Take Wing and Fly Here

Take Wing and Fly Here PDF Author: Priyanka Kumar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781890932442
Category : Bird watching
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
J.K. is juggling a Big Year race - to see the most number of bird species in L.A. County in one year - with trying to complete a doctorate in physics. Rick, the president of the bird society, is nipping at J.K.'s heels in the Big Year count, always just two or three bird sightings behind him. As Trip Chair, J.K. is also under pressure to organize birding trips for the society. A Big Year is a "race against time," and as the year unfolds, J.K. finds it harder to concentrate on the last important paper he needs to publish to get his Ph.D. Yet he desires a postdoctoral position at Princeton, which would also keep his East-Coast girlfriend Anne Marie happy. With the Alpena Bird Society near bankruptcy as it stumbles into its Centennial year, and its members interested only in gawking at birds, Hospitality Queen Karen decides that the senseless killing of cowbirds in Joss Canyon, Alpena's last remaining wild land, must stop. Karen starts out with the bird society as an outlet for her ten-year-old son who has a birding mania, but as the novel progresses she's more and more frustrated by the society's lackadaisical approach to its Centennial and to bird conservation. That J.K.'s girlfriend is not a birder hasn't been a big problem so far, but as the Big Year draws to a close, the stresses on their relationship begin to show. J.K. counts on his physics supervisor to mentor his postdoctoral search, but his job prospects grow bleak. Rick's problem is that his wife Meg is suspicious of Karen's interest in Rick and jealous of the time he spends Big Year birding. Rick spends much energy on Machiavellian ruminations about how to indulge his passion for the Big Year while placating Meg. Karen does have a special fondness for Rick, but she's busy saving the cowbirds in Joss Canyon, which is now threatened by developers. Meanwhile J.K.'s "safety net" begins to dismantle until he discovers that he doesn't have the support structure to achieve the success he'd hoped for. Disappointed, J.K. retreats to the mountains. But he has one last promise to keep - to attend the bird society's Centennial.

A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds

A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds PDF Author: Scott Weidensaul
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393608913
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Get Book Here

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year An exhilarating exploration of the science and wonder of global bird migration. In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we’ve learned of these key migrations—how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis—is nothing short of extraordinary. Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela—the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest—avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth’s magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides—and their reaction time actually improves. These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges. Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.

Take Wing

Take Wing PDF Author: Jean Little
Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
When Mother is hospitalized, everyone in the Ross household must finally face the long ignored problem that seven-year-old James is not a baby, a slow learner, or lazy, but mentally retarded.

Taking Wing

Taking Wing PDF Author: Nancy Price Graff
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618535910
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Gus never imagined himself a parent at thirteen. But in the war-fraught summer of 1942, while living on his grandparents' Vermont farm, he adopts a clutch of orphaned duck eggs. Gus can relate to the foundlings, as he is apart from, and yearns for, his own family. One day Gus finds a young stranger standing over the incubating eggs. Gus doesn't know what to make of her, with her tattered clothing and strange accent, but soon the girl is helping to care for the newly hatched ducklings, and she and Gus become fast friends. Not everyone shares Gus's high opinion of Louise, whose poverty-stricken French-Canadian family is shunned by the townspeople. His attempt to help his friend and her family has some embarrassing consequences and he must make retribution if he is to keep Louise's friendship. Nancy Price Graff's fluid narrative and exceptional eye for detail follow Gus during a time of food rationing, Victory gardens, watching for enemy planes--and keeping his ducks from harm.

Taking More Birds

Taking More Birds PDF Author: Dan Carlisle
Publisher: Lyons Press
ISBN: 9781558214736
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The complex art of wing shooting and an analysis of the skills needed for accuracy.

The Heartbeats of Wing Jones

The Heartbeats of Wing Jones PDF Author: Katherine Webber
Publisher: Delacorte Press
ISBN: 039955503X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jandy Nelson meets Friday Night Lights in this sweeping, warm, arrestingly original novel about family, poverty, and hope. Wing Jones, like everyone else in her town, has worshipped her older brother, Marcus, for as long as she can remember. Good-looking, popular, and the star of the football team, Marcus is everything his sister is not. Until the night everything changes when Marcus, drunk at the wheel after a party, kills two people and barely survives himself. With Marcus now in a coma, Wing is crushed, confused, and angry. She is tormented at school for Marcus’s mistake, haunted at home by her mother and grandmothers’ grief. In addition to all this, Wing is scared that the bank is going to repossess her home because her family can’t afford Marcus’s mounting medical bills. Every night, unable to sleep, Wing finds herself sneaking out to go to the school’s empty track. When Aaron, Marcus’s best friend, sees her running one night, he recognizes that her speed, skill, and agility could get her spot on the track team. And better still, an opportunity at a coveted sponsorship from a major athletic gear company. Wing can’t pass up the opportunity to train with her longtime crush and to help her struggling family, but can she handle being thrust out of Marcus’s shadow and into the spotlight? "The swiftly paced story will quickly sweep up readers...[a] well-crafted, inspirational debut with plenty of heart, hope, and determination." —Booklist "A story showing how hope and love can blossom in the midst of chaos." —Publishers Weekly

Right Wing Justice

Right Wing Justice PDF Author: Herman Schwartz
Publisher: Nation Books
ISBN: 9781560255666
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Get Book Here

Book Description
Right Wing Justice raises the alarm about the creeping conservative campaign to "pack" America's courts with judges more identified with their ideological affiliation than their skill or regard for the Constitution. The consequence is that the rule of law is taking a terrific beating from the Supreme Court. Who can forget the debacle of Election 2000? But the consequences of the campaign go far deeper than that, impinging on the daily lives of ordinary Americans who are at the receiving end of attempts to overturn or erode Supreme Court rulings on abortion, school prayer, civil rights, criminal justice, and economic regulation. As the author shows, the problem does not end at the Supreme Court—it filters down to the lowers courts and circuits. Right Wing Justice gives an alarming account of how this has come to pass over the last two decades, how conservative activists hatched this strategy in the 1960s only to see it really come of age during the Reagan revolution and the successive Republican administrations. Combining a scholar's sense of history with the immediacy of eyewitness testimony, Right Wing Justice will come not only as a sobering reading to many concerned Americans—but also as a call to wake-up.

How to Heal a Broken Wing

How to Heal a Broken Wing PDF Author: Bob Graham
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536220922
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 43

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Such a visual piece . . . readers young and old will return to the story to look more deeply; they won’t be disappointed.” — Booklist (starred review) In a city full of hurried people, only young Will notices the bird lying hurt on the ground. With the help of his sympathetic mother, he gently wraps the injured bird and takes it home. Wistful and uplifting in true Bob Graham fashion, here is a tale of possibility — and of the souls who never doubt its power.