The latest edition of the National Library Magazine, from the Australian National Library in Canberra has a fascinating article by Penny on the life and works of the French naturalist and ornithologist François le Vaillant.
This series of posters features birds that indicate ecological and social events in four Central Australian Aboriginal languages: Arrernte, Anmatyerr, Alyawarr and Kaytetye.
The Turkey Vulture is a common bird in the south of the United States and has a range from southern Canada to the tip of the southern American continent.
Spinifex Pigeons are Australian endemics and superbly adapted to life in the Australian arid zone. Their cryptic plumage means that they blend into the rocky ridges and red soils that are their favoured breeding and foraging habitats.
In Australia we have 14 families and over 2,800 species of crickets and grasshoppers - here are some pictures and stories of grasshoppers found in central Australia.
A female Peregrine Falcon - powerful legs, cere and eye-ring all a bright yellow, the back a dark and shining slate grey in the bright sun and the black executioner's hood that encases the head from which black eyes gleam. Below, the chest a glowing bleached white, the belly barred brown over cream.
The Owlet-nightjar, known to the Warlpiri people as Jarlajirrpi, is commonly regarded as a familiar spirit of the Kurdaitcha man - part mercenary contract killer, part quasi-judicial executioner.
The Luurn (Red-backed Kingfisher) Tjukurrpa is of prime importance to the groups of the western deserts region, since it represents one expression of a major initiation cycle, Tingarri, a Law bequeathed to them by Luurn and other ancestral beings.
China is not a good place to be a bird...The Li men jostle to sell me supper, all of it live: white-breasted waterhens, little egrets, a black-crowned night heron and a spot-billed duck, the only duck where male and female look alike.
"We had no idea that mice could do this sort of thing." Swarms of 10 mice at a time can be seen gnawing at the chicks' bodies.
