The Life of the Robin

The Life of the Robin PDF Author: David Lack
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843681205
Category : Robins
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Robin has now been voted Britain's favorite bird--a friendly presence in thousands of gardens, year round. Its life was hardly understood when David Lack--who has been called Britain's most influential ornithologist--started his scientific observations of robins while a schoolteacher at Dartington. It was Lack who established that robins sing to defend their territory; that males will fight to the death but will also feed injured opponents; that couples will court and mate but then ignore each other; that most robins will die in any given year. The book he wrote is a landmark in natural history, not just for discoveries that changed ornithology, but because of the approachable style, sharpened with an acute wit. It reads as freshly and as fascinatingly today as when it was first written. No one who has ever enjoyed the company of a robin in their garden or on a walk will want to be without this book. Unavailable for many years, this classic work includes postscripts by the author's son, Peter Lack, and by the doyen of robin studies today, David Harper. The former explains the genesis of the book and situates it in the hugely important lifetime's work carried out by his father, while the latter describes recent advances in robin studies in the context of each chapter.

The Life of the Robin

The Life of the Robin PDF Author: David Lack
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843681205
Category : Robins
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
The Robin has now been voted Britain's favorite bird--a friendly presence in thousands of gardens, year round. Its life was hardly understood when David Lack--who has been called Britain's most influential ornithologist--started his scientific observations of robins while a schoolteacher at Dartington. It was Lack who established that robins sing to defend their territory; that males will fight to the death but will also feed injured opponents; that couples will court and mate but then ignore each other; that most robins will die in any given year. The book he wrote is a landmark in natural history, not just for discoveries that changed ornithology, but because of the approachable style, sharpened with an acute wit. It reads as freshly and as fascinatingly today as when it was first written. No one who has ever enjoyed the company of a robin in their garden or on a walk will want to be without this book. Unavailable for many years, this classic work includes postscripts by the author's son, Peter Lack, and by the doyen of robin studies today, David Harper. The former explains the genesis of the book and situates it in the hugely important lifetime's work carried out by his father, while the latter describes recent advances in robin studies in the context of each chapter.

Robin

Robin PDF Author: Dave Itzkoff
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1627794255
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
From New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, the definitive biography of Robin Williams – a compelling portrait of one of America’s most beloved and misunderstood entertainers. From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. He often came across as a man possessed, holding forth on culture and politics while mixing in personal revelations – all with mercurial, tongue-twisting intensity as he inhabited and shed one character after another with lightning speed. But as Dave Itzkoff shows in this revelatory biography, Williams’s comic brilliance masked a deep well of conflicting emotions and self-doubt, which he drew upon in his comedy and in celebrated films like Dead Poets Society; Good Morning, Vietnam; The Fisher King; Aladdin; and Mrs. Doubtfire, where he showcased his limitless gift for improvisation to bring to life a wide range of characters. And in Good Will Hunting he gave an intense and controlled performance that revealed the true range of his talent. Itzkoff also shows how Williams struggled mightily with addiction and depression – topics he discussed openly while performing and during interviews – and with a debilitating condition at the end of his life that affected him in ways his fans never knew. Drawing on more than a hundred original interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as extensive archival research, Robin is a fresh and original look at a man whose work touched so many lives.

The Robin

The Robin PDF Author: Stephen Moss
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473546109
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Acclaimed naturalist and birdwatcher Stephen Moss brings us this year's perfect Christmas gift: a year in the life of Britain's favourite bird - the robin. In The Robin Moss records a year of observing the robin both close to home and in the field to shed light on the hidden life of this apparently familiar bird. We follow its lifecycle from the time it enters the world as an egg, through its time as a nestling and juvenile, to the adult bird; via courtship, song, breeding, feeding, migration - and ultimately, death. At the same time, we trace the robin's relationship with us: how did this bird - one of more than 300 species in its huge and diverse family - find its way so deeply and permanently into our nation's heart and its social and cultural history? It's a story that tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the robin itself. No other bird is quite so ever-present and familiar, so embedded in our culture, as the robin. But how much do we really know about this bird? 'There is no doubt that Moss's book, with its charming cover and quaint illustrations, will make it into many a stocking this year' The Times

The American Robin

The American Robin PDF Author: Roland H. Wauer
Publisher: Univ of TX + ORM
ISBN: 029275986X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
The American Robin is North America's most widespread songbird, with a range extending from Alaska, Canada, and Newfoundland to the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala. Its ruddy red breast and cheerful song have also made it one of our most beloved birds—as American as apple pie, as familiar a harbinger of spring as the first daffodil. Connecticut, Michigan, and Wisconsin have chosen the American Robin as their state bird, while a pair of robins grace the Canadian two dollar bill. In this book, Roland Wauer offers a complete natural history of the American Robin for a popular audience. Combining his own observations as a field naturalist with data gleaned from the scientific literature, he describes the American Robin from every angle—appearance and biology, distribution, behavior, life cycle, and enemies and threats. In addition, he explores the legends and lore surrounding robins and offers suggestions for attracting them to your yard.

The Story of the Easter Robin

The Story of the Easter Robin PDF Author: Dandi Daley Mackall
Publisher: Zonderkidz
ISBN: 0310424143
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
In the center of the nest lay one perfect egg, the color of a spring sky. The father robin sat on a branch nearby, guarding his family. Tressa spotted raccoon tracks below and a blue jay eyeing the nest. “Gran, how are we going to keep the egg safe?”“We’ll have to leave that one to the Creator,” Gran said.Robins have built a nest on the window ledge at Grandmother’s house! Tressa is thrilled—and concerned. What will happen to the sky-blue egg laid by the mother robin? As more eggs appear, Tressa witnesses the daily drama of the robins’ nest and learns how God cares for all creatures.Besides watching the birds, there are Easter eggs to color. And there is a very special story to hear—a tale of long ago about one small bird with a very big heart. How did the robin get its red breast? Tressa is about to find out as Gran tells her the story of the Easter robin.Brought to life with colorful, tender illustrations, The Story of the Easter Robin will captivate and teach your child about compassion and faith.

Turning Life Into Fiction

Turning Life Into Fiction PDF Author: Robin Hemley
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1555974449
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
With lively style, good humor and insight, Robin Hemley helps you turn all that you experience into fresh and powerful fiction. By learning to "reimagine", you'll focus on translating real-world people and events into characters and scenes that happen on paper for the first time. You'll think "what if" instead of "what is" in order to take control of your material and cut loose the inhibitions of real life. In these pages, you'll learn how to hone your observation skills and fill your journal with rich and vivid details. (Because, as Hemley writes, "Life is in the details, and so is good fiction".) You'll see how to decide which ideas to bring to fiction and which ones to let go. And you'll learn how to: find the right form - novel, short story, vignette, memoir - for the story you want to tell; use "triggers" to start your reader's imagination rolling; keep your fiction emotionally honest by making the right choices between "the way it happened" and what the story dictates (ask "Is it believable?", not "Did it happen?"); create composites of real people and places that fit the unique needs of your story and empower your imagination; focus your fiction. Make sure everything, every character counts - and eliminate "people who sit at the end of the bar without a role to play"; fictionalize - ethically and legally - other people's stories. Learn your rights as a writer versus their rights to privacy. (Can you use actual names? When do you need to get permission?). To illustrate how writers feed their fiction with reality, Hemley uses examples from his own work and from fiction masters of yesterday and today. At the end of each chapter, challenging exercises help you apply the basictheories and push them even further. An adventurous read, Turning Life Into Fiction will help you create fiction that's just as strange and wonderful and "real" as the life that inspires it.

Robins

Robins PDF Author: Robin Nelson
Publisher: Lerner Publications
ISBN: 0761340688
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
A basic overview of the life cycle of robins.

What the Robin Knows

What the Robin Knows PDF Author: Jon Young
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547451253
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
How understanding bird language and behavior can help us to see more wildlife.

Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher

Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher PDF Author: Robin Harris
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466847514
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 507

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Book Description
Margaret Thatcher is one of the most significant political figures of the twentieth century—a Prime Minister whose impact on modern English history is comparable only to Winston Churchill's. Like them or not, her radical policies made Britain the country it is today. And like her or not, Margaret Thatcher's legacy remains a massive political force, responsible for laying the groundwork for New Labour, Tony Blair, and David Cameron, and for England's strong political allegiance to the United States throughout the Cold War. Now Robin Harris, for many years Mrs. Thatcher's speechwriter, close adviser, and the draftsman of both volumes of her autobiography, has written the definitive book about this indomitable English woman. In this international bestseller, he tells the compelling story of her life, from humble beginnings above her father's grocery store in Grantham, her early days as one of the first women in Westminster (she became known as "Thatcher Milk Snatcher" during her time in the Ministry of Education), and then on to her groundbreaking career as Prime Minister (by which time her reputation already demanded a more powerful epithet: "Iron Lady"). We follow Thatcher through hard-fought political battles and experience with her the tribulations of the English miners' strike and the Falklands War, of her sometimes troubled friendship with Ronald Reagan, and their shared staunch opposition to Communism. We learn of the political intrigue behind the scenes at Ten Downing Street. And how during one of the darkest hours of her premiership she refused to alter course and, adapting the words of an English play, declared to her enemies, inside and outside the Government, "You turn if you want to. The Lady's Not for Turning," summing up for admirers and detractors alike the defiance and consistency of Mrs. Thatcher's approach. Throughout Not for Turning we sense the passionate intellect which fuelled her ambitions, drove her into and out of one of the highest offices in the English-speaking world, and has established a unique political legacy that continues even after her death... Not for Turning is an unforgettable portrait of Britain's first female Prime Minister, written by one of her most trusted advisers, and a fitting tribute to an extraordinary politician and leader.

Voyage of the Sable Venus

Voyage of the Sable Venus PDF Author: Robin Coste Lewis
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101911204
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
This National Book Award-winning debut poetry collection is a "powerfully evocative" (The New York Review of Books) meditation on the black female figure through time. Robin Coste Lewis's electrifying collection is a triptych that begins and ends with lyric poems meditating on the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self. In the center of the collection is the title poem, "Voyage of the Sable Venus," an amazing narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present—titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art. Bracketed by Lewis's own autobiographical poems, "Voyage" is a tender and shocking meditation on the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, juxtaposing our names for things with what we actually see and know. A new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin—five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role did art play in this ancient, often heinous story? Here we meet a poet who adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire—how they define us all, including her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race—a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.