Birds of Hawaii Photographic Guide
A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Hawai’i: The Main Islands and Offshore Waters
This photo guide is organized into five sections based on a general categorization of where the birds are found. These sectors are Urban, Country, Forest, Wetland, and Seabirds. Each bird has a general description of the bird along with notes about the bird’s natural history. This information consists of a mixture of habitat, population status, behavior, seasonal appearance, and introduction background. For the last forty years, Jim Denny has been a resident of Kekaha, Kaua’i, and his photos have appeared in textbooks, conservation literature, and popular magazines including Audubon, Smithsonian, and National Geographic.
Pure Sea Glass
Richard LaMotte is the author of an incredible reference for anyone who has walked the beach and collected pieces of sea glass. Pure Sea Glass: Discovering Nature’s Vanishing Gems
This fascinating book is a coffee table book, as well as a comprehensive reference guide, as well as a wonderful visit to the seashore and fond memories. Richard LaMotte has been at the forefront of sea-glass research since presenting his first lecture on the topic back in 2002. And this book earned first place in nonfiction from the Writer’s Digest 13th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards.
Hawaiian Birds of the Sea
Hawaiian Birds of the Sea by Robert J. Shallenberger showcases about two dozen species of sea birds (na manu kai) that make their home in the Hawaiian islands. Stunning color photographs illustrate this beautiful book of seabirds from the far eastern tip of the Big Island to the western end of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. The monument encompasses the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding waters, which together form the second largest marine wildlife reserve in the world.
Each bird receives a few pages of description and color photographs showing them in flight and nesting on the ground. Additional photos are peppered throughout the book showing habitats, conservation efforts, bird-related history, as well as the Hawaiian Monk Seal, Green Sea Turtle, Spinner Dolphin, Nihoa Millerbird, and Laysan Finch. The text offers an overview of the bird’s breeding, nesting, feeding behaviors, and conservation efforts, as well as the role of seabirds in Hawaiian culture.
Shallenberger is a conservation biologist who shares his passion for wildlife through his photography. He is currently the Hawai’i Island Conservation Director for The Nature Conservancy and vice president of the Hawai’i Wildlife Center. His photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Audubon, and National Wildlife. The author also shares an engaging personal perspective on life with seabirds. Naturalists, wildlife biologists, and birders who share an interest in the natural world and appreciate fine wildlife photography, will enjoy Hawaiian Birds of the Sea: Na Manu Kai
The World Is Blue
The World Is Blue by legendary marine scientist Sylvia Earle portrays a planet teetering on the brink of irreversible environmental crisis. In recent decades we’ve learned more about the ocean than in all previous human history combined. But, this eloquent, urgent, and fascinating book reveals how just 50 years of swift and dangerous oceanic change threatens the very existence of life on Earth. Modern overexploitation has driven many species to the verge of extinction, from tiny biota to magnificent creatures like tuna and whales.
In the book, she articulates, through personal experiences and scientific documentation, how the decline of the oceans is happening parallel to, and delicately intertwined with the fate of the atmosphere and what is happening on land. Sylvia argues passionately and persuasively to find responsible, renewable strategies that safeguard the natural systems that sustain us. Fortunately, there is reason for hope, but what we do (or fail to do) in the next ten years may well resonate for the next ten thousand. Her book is more than a wake up call.
Sylvia Earle is a former NOAA chief scientist. She is a National Geographic Explorer in residence, a woman who led a five year sea voyage and participated in almost 75 other expeditions, lectured in 70 countries, and authored more than 170 publications. She has been scuba diving for over half a century, walked the ocean floor some 1,250 feet below the surface, and utilized 30 different types of submarines. She was named “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times, a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, and Time Magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet.” Sylvia Earle is also a key reason why Google Earth developed Google Oceans – a phenomenal learning tool to help protect and maintain the ocean’s health.
She is the most qualified individual on earth to promote saving it. She understands that the ocean is the source of most of the oxygen we breath, most of water we drink (rain water) and a large part of the food we eat. She systematically outlines what man has done to the ocean over the last 100 years and the implications if we continue on this path. Dr. Earle has a wish in The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One
Eye Of The Whale – Novel
Eye Of The Whale is an ecological suspense novel by national bestseller Douglas Carlton Abrams. This thriller is about a marine biologist whose fate is altered after the unexpected appearance of a humpback whale sends her on a race to discover the meaning of its mysterious song.
The main character, Elizabeth, is studying whales and their speech patterns. During her exhibition she hears an unusual pattern change in the whales song (the most complex in nature). Upon her return, her life begins spinning out of control as she receives a notice from her professor that her funding has been cut, and her husband has grown tired of her absence and leaves her. Then, when a humpback whale, Apollo, swims up the Sacramento River with a strange and unprecedented song, she makes it her mission to decipher its meaning in order to save the whale. Soon, Elizabeth is forced to decide if her discoveries are worth losing her marriage, her career, and possibly her life.
This complex book is packed with romance, science, suspense, and ecological facts, as it delves into the lives of its characters, including Elizabeth, her husband, her ex-boyfriend, her best friend an animal rights activist, whalers from around the world, professors, Apollo the whale, and a chemical company CEO. As timely as today’s ecological challenges and as timeless as the whales themselves, this novel takes readers into the mysterious world of humpback whales. In writing Eye of the Whale
