With its striking plumage, the great blue heron is one of the most widely recognized wading birds in North America. Riding on kelp beds in the Queen Charlotte Islands, wading in coastal streams along the mainland, poised motionless at the water's edge on a misty morning, or nesting in the limbs of old-growth forests, this stately bird is a familiar sight on the coast of British Columbia. The largest colonies are on the Fraser River delta, an area of great ecological significance to the north Pacific. Despite a growing body of knowledge regarding many aspects of the species' breeding biology and courtship behaviour, the foraging and population ecology of this bird remains something of an enigma. In his beautifully illustrated book, Robert Butler follows the great blue heron through a year on the coast of British Columbia. He draws on more than a decade of work to throw light on the adaptability of this magnificent bird to a temperate climate, its diet and breeding habits, habitat use, and conservation. Although the great blue heron has become a symbol of wetland conservation, in recent years it has had to face new challenges as a consequence of rapid urbanization of its environment. In The Great Blue Heron the author also describes the B.C. coast and shares a vision for the conservation of the Strait of Georgia and the Fraser River delta.

Recounts the author's relationship with Henry, her "pet" great blue heron, from her first sightings of the animal in the backyard and his appetite for the fish in the ponds to her routine with him and his conflict with other birds in the yard.

The bestselling natural history of birds, lavishly illustrated with 600 colorphotos, is now available for the first time in flexi binding.

'Bright Dead Things buoyed me in this dismal year. I'm thankful for this collection, for its wisdom and generosity, for its insistence on holding tight to beauty even as we face disintegration and destruction.' Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You A book of bravado and introspection, of feminist swagger and harrowing loss, Bright Dead Things considers how we build our identities out of place and human contact - tracing in intimate detail the ways the speaker's sense of self both shifts and perseveres as she moves from New York City to rural Kentucky, loses a dear parent, ages past the capriciousness of youth and falls in love. In these extraordinary poems Ada Limón's heart becomes a 'huge beating genius machine' striving to embrace and understand the fullness of the present moment. 'I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying,' the poet writes. Building on the legacies of forebears such as Frank O'Hara, Sharon Olds and Mark Doty, Limón's work is consistently generous, accessible, and 'effortlessly lyrical' (New York Times) - though every observed moment feels complexly thought, felt and lived.

See preceding entry. The publisher describes the present volume as the first book on this species. It's a lovely one that should appeal to a wide audience. The text covers the full life history of the species, while 90 color photographs cover nesting, flying, wading, and fishing. Great shots of young herons in the nest. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book features one of the author's favorite birds, The Great Blue Heron. He hopes you enjoy this intimate look into the life of a truly magnificent American bird. Most of these photos were taken by him in the beautiful Hocking Hills area of southeastern Ohio. This book is intended as a photographic essay concerning one bird species, the Great Blue Heron. It is not a technical piece by any means. My intent is to let these photographs speak for themselves as much as possible. I might interject my observations into its photographic narration at some points, but only as clarification or to point out an observation of my own pertaining to what these great birds have taught me about themselves. They were the teachers, I was the eager student. They still have much to teach me. I'll never live long enough to know it all. I was amazed to find that I had over 9,000 images of Great Blue Herons in my computer folders. I know I will run across some photographs later on and say to myself: I should have included this one, or that one. I still take more photos each time I go to my lake. I can't help myself. Who knows if the next photo will teach me something else about these aptly named birds. I'm almost afraid to check my picture files for all the other species I have photographed. If all goes well with this offering, I may do other books on other species in at some point in the future.