From the black swan to the ruby-throated hummingbird, Nature Guide Birds of the World, profiles the world's most amazing bird species. Part of a new generation of compact natural history guides, Birds of the World is packed full of stunning images that reveal intricate details and unique characteristics of the species featured. Expertly written and including examples from across the globe, these guides will give you knowledge of the natural world at your fingertips. With a detailed introduction all about bird classification, anatomy, migration, habitats and flight, Nature Guide Birds of the World is the ideal bird identification guide.

Do you know that cormorants are expert fishers? They swim along the water and then quickly dive to catch their prey! Or that great crested grebes fluff up their feathers and break out into a dance to attract their mates? From the easy-to-spot, year-round tufted duck to the summer visitor and cackling fulmar, get ready to find out about 137 different birds. There are so many feathered friends to meet in this children's spotter's field guide, published in collaboration with the RSPB, the largest wildlife conservation charity in Europe. You will learn where to find birds, what different bird habitats look like and which birds to look out for throughout different seasons. Including our favourite birds, such as the goldfinch, robin, blue tit, blackbird and even owl, as well as some less common visitors we might not know of, each page contains information boxes about each bird. With beautiful illustrations by Kate McLelland throughout, this is the perfect contemporary pocket guide for young birdwatchers in-the-making and adult nature enthusiasts alike.

Have the world in your hands with these compact, illustrated natural history guides From the black swan to the ruby-throated hummingbird, leaf through Nature Guide Birds of the World, a beautiful guide profiling the world's most amazing bird species. Part of a new generation of compact natural history guides, Birds of the World is packed full of stunning images that reveal intricate details and unique characteristics of the species featured. Expertly written and including examples from across the globe, these guides will give you knowledge of the natural world at your fingertips. With a detailed introduction all about bird classification, anatomy, migration, habitats and flight, Nature Guide Birds of the World is the ideal bird identification guide.

Monthly magazine devoted to topics of general scientific interest.

'Suppose you have seen an event, have formed an idea about it, and you say something that is not true – in other words, something that is a lie. Then what flows from the object is correct and what flows from you is false and this collision is a terrible explosion; and each time you do this, you attach a gruesome being to your karma which you cannot get rid of again until you have made good what you lied about.' – Rudolf Steiner In a previously-untranslated volume of lectures, Rudolf Steiner presents shattering insights regarding the interaction of human and spiritual beings. He speaks, for example, about how perfumes can give certain spirits access to people on earth, or how phantoms, spectres and demons can be created through human deficiencies – or even how the arts of architecture, sculpture, painting and music allow 'good' or 'hideous' entities to enter our world. As he states: 'Learning about the effects of spiritual beings is of much greater help than moral preaching. A future humanity will know what it is creating through lies, hypocrisy and slander.' The lectures are divided into two broad thematic groups: the first relating to the inner path of knowledge and its relation to the yearly festivals, and the second focusing on the work of elemental beings in our everyday world. The 18 lectures are complemented with notes, an index and an introduction by Christian von Arnim.

Birds are among the most extensively studied of all animal groups. Hundreds of academic journals and thousands of scientists are devoted to bird research, while amateur enthusiasts (called birdwatchers or, more commonly, birders) probably number in the millions. Birds are categorised as a biological class, Aves. The earliest known species of this class is Archaeopteryx lithographica, from the Late Jurassic period. According to the most recent consensus, Aves and a sister group, the order Crocodilia, together form a group of unnamed rank, the Archosauria. Phylogenetically, Aves is usually defined as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds (or of a specific modern bird species like Passer domesticus), and Archaeopteryx. Modern phylogenies place birds in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. Modern birds are divided into two superorders, the Paleognathae (mostly flightless birds like ostriches), and the wildly diverse Neognathae, containing all other birds.