Penguins are among the world’s most beloved birds. In this enchanting guide, Matt Sewell captures 50 species of penguins and other sea bird favorites like puffins and albatrosses. From the Little Penguin, who is only 13 inches tall, to the Fiordland Crested Penguin, who sports bushy yellow eyebrows, these charismatic birds are sure to delight both young and old.

Seabirds evoke the spirit of the earth's wildest places. They spend large portions of their lives at sea, often far from land, and nest on remote islands that humans rarely visit. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated and miniaturized devices that can track their every movement and behavior, it is now possible to observe the mysterious lives of these remarkable creatures as never before. This book takes you on a breathtaking journey around the globe to provide an extraordinary up-close look at the activities of seabirds. Featuring stunning illustrations by renowned artist Bruce Pearson, Far from Land reveals that seabirds are not the aimless wind-tossed wanderers they may appear to be, and explains the observational innovations that are driving this exciting area of research.

Publisher Description

Life itself could never have been sustainable without seabirds. As Adam Nicolson writes: "They are bringers of fertility, the deliverers of life from ocean to land." A global tragedy is unfolding. Even as we are coming to understand them, the number of seabirds on our planet is in freefall, dropping by nearly 70% in the last sixty years, a billion fewer now than there were in 1950. Of the ten birds in this book, seven are in decline, at least in part of their range. Extinction stalks the ocean and there is a danger that the grand cry of the seabird colony, rolling around the bays and headlands of high latitudes, will this century become little but a memory. Seabirds have always entranced the human imagination and NYT best-selling author Adam Nicolson has been in love with them all his life: for their mastery of wind and ocean, their aerial beauty and the unmatched wildness of the coasts and islands where every summer they return to breed. The seabird’s cry comes from an elemental layer in the story of the world. Over the last couple of decades, modern science has begun to understand their epic voyages, their astonishing abilities to navigate for tens of thousands of miles on featureless seas, their ability to smell their way towards fish and home. Only the poets in the past would have thought of seabirds as creatures riding the ripples and currents of the entire planet, but that is what the scientists are seeing now today.

Prepare to enter the hidden world of the penguin. Learn how penguins dominate the half world of land and sea. See penguins like you have never seen them before. This extraordinary book is the authoritative work on penguins of South America, an area that includes the Falkland Islands, one of the worlds most important penguin breeding sites. Based on 8 years of research by Dr. Mike Bingham, the book includes detailed maps and population data for each breeding site. The introduction gives an in depth look at the evolution, physiology, and life strategies of penguins, whilst individual chapters explain how each species has become adapted to fulfil its own particular niche. Finally the role of penguins in the environment is explained, with some remarkable implications for human kind. If you want to know where to find a particular penguin, then maps of each species will show. If you want to know why penguins dont fly, or why they are black and white, then this book will give you the answer. And as an added incentive, the proceeds from the book fund the authors ongoing efforts to save penguins threatened by over-fishing and oil pollution in the Falkland Islands. Prepare to be astonished, enthralled, and captivated by this beautifully written book.

Describes over five hundred species of sea birds from around the world, and includes information on distinguishing characteristics and behavior

This readable guide to the seabirds of the world provides updated material on every aspect of this fascinating group of birds. Ornithologist Anthony J. Gaston has devoted decades to the study of these beautiful and engaging birds, and he explains in detail what is special about being a seabird and why--like us--they live a long time and reproduce very slowly. Enriched with personal anecdotes from the field and remarkable photographs from John Chardine and Tim Lash, this book will appeal to students, birdwatchers, ornithologists, and naturalists alike. The book covers the gamut of seabirds. It includes information on seabird types, adaptation and plumage, how they are distributed into communities, feeding behavior, migration, breeding, and the consequences of coloniality. The author concludes with a thoughtful analysis and discussion of the population dynamics and life-history strategy of seabirds.