InstantForum.NET v4.1.4New Naturalistshttp://www.newnaturalists.com/Forums/newnaturalists@harpercollins.co.ukWed, 08 Feb 2012 00:20:24 GMT20http://www.newnaturalists.com/Forums/Topic698-11-1.aspxS W Mott's recent mention of an NN favourite, Gordon Manley's Climate and the British Scene (15/6/10 under the Bird Migration topic) prompts me to revive the subject of favourites first taken up in the old forum during the summer of 2008.</P><P>One of my favourites is Brian Moss' masterly account of the intricate interplay of fauna and flora within the ecological and biological systems in "The Broads". A complex subject explained well.</P><P>Another, because it was my very first NN, is Desmond Nethersole-Thompson's "The Greenshank". It was a revelation to me as a schoolboy in the early 1950s to find a whole book devoted to just a single species of bird! And not just any bird but the mysterious one I had just succeeded in identifying on my father's farm.</P><P>Nicholson's "Birds and Men" received as a school prize in 1951 is still a treasured possession. This was complemented in the 70's by Murton's "Man and Birds". After all these years, I am reading Gilmour and Walters "Wild Flowers" and find it still flows very well, as do many of the early volumes, not least "World of Spiders" and "A Country Parish".</P><P>I am inclined to agree with S M W about "Grouse" but did not bother to get "Wildfowl".</P><P>Kind regards,</P><P>John BTue, 27 Jul 2010 16:11:06 GMTJohn Beal