Animal Science

Who’s that singing in the backyard? It’s a house sparrow! Find out where house sparrows live, what they eat, and how to identify the birds and their eggs.

Brown bears lead deeply cyclical lives. They need to gain sometimes hundreds of pounds during the warmer months to prepare for winter hibernation, a lifestyle that brings them into frequent contact with many other species’ cycles. In this episode, we meander through the Alaska peninsula with a bear and her cubs as she teaches them to hunt salmon at the falls, dig for clams along the coastal mudflats, and use the regional rubbing tree.

Dogs are a familiar and comforting part of many of our lives. In this episode, we take a walk with a pet xoloitzcuintli, or Mexican hairless dog, as he greets his blocks by smell. Along the way, we learn the backstory of squirrels in U.S. cities and observe the very smart and clean neighborhood raccoon.

Dung beetles might sound dirty, but the ancient Egyptians believed their god took the form of a dung beetle to roll the morning sun across the sky every day. In this episode, we roll with dung beetles around the world as they push their precious dung—often in balls many times larger than they are—over Florida pastures, Armenian highlands, and the vast South African savanna.

Smoke in the air. Crackling wood. Wildfire! Get to safety, fast. Dry weather, strong winds, and careless actions can all cause forests to burn. Firefighters battle wildfires from the ground and from above. But you can be prepared!

In Hiccup the Viking's misadventures, the stakes have never been higher, and it's friend versus foe to decide the fate of the world. In this, the penultimate title in the amazing story arc that began with How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup is faced with a personal dilemma against the backdrop of an impending battle and the possible destruction of everything he knows.

After unearthing Aunt Lavender's secret, we may finally know why she was abducted. Unfortunately, it also means the stakes are higher than ever. We're making headway, but we need help to navigate the elusive world of magical treasure hunting. So, when famed adventurer Tabitha Blake arrives in Winterspell, offering to help, I jump at the chance to work with her.

“This is one of those stories that begins with a female body. Hers was crumpled, roadside, in the ash-colored slush between asphalt and snowbank.” So begins Erica Berry’s kaleidoscopic exploration of wolves, both real and symbolic. At the center of this lyrical inquiry is the legendary OR-7, who roams away from his familial pack in northeastern Oregon. While charting OR-7’s record-breaking journey out of the Wallowa Mountains, Erica simultaneously details her own coming-of-age as she moves away from home and wrestles with inherited beliefs about fear, danger, femininity, and the body.

Maniye's father is the Wolf clan's chieftain, but she's an outcast. Her mother was queen of the Tiger, and these tribes have been enemies for generations. Maniye also hides a deadly secret. All can shift into their clan's animal form, but Maniye can take on tiger and wolf shapes. She refuses to disown half her soul so escapes, rescuing a prisoner of the Wolf clan in the process. The killer Broken Axe is set on their trail, to drag them back for retribution.

In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

A pair of fierce but beautiful eyes look out from the undergrowth of conifers. The eyes follow every movement in the great herd of plant-eating dinosaurs that mills around the open meadows, moving back and forth with the rapid scanning of a hunter who is thinking about everything she sees. She is an intelligent killer.

Artist, technologist, and philosopher James Bridle’s Ways of Being is a brilliant, searching exploration of different kinds of intelligence—plant, animal, human, artificial—and how they transform our understanding of humans’ place in the cosmos. What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans, or shared with other beings—beings of flesh, wood, stone, and silicon? The last few years have seen rapid advances in “artificial” intelligence.

Easy beekeeping for new-bees. Wouldn’t it be great to raise your own bees, have a fresh supply of honey, and bring thousands of healthy pollinators into your yard? Beekeeping for Beginners is a simple, step-by-step guide that helps you learn the fundamentals of modern beekeeping. You (and your bees) will be buzzing with delight. From picking the right hive and bringing your bees home to surviving winter and collecting honey, experienced beekeeper Amber Bradshaw takes you on an easy-to-follow journey through your first year of beekeeping and beyond.

Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the Shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels the globe - from the Amazon Basin to the Far East - to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life. Intelligence in Nature presents overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone.

Describes some animals that move at extreme speeds when they jump, run, or fly. Some of the animals shown include a kangaroo, a zebra, a lion, and a bald eagle.

Does your dog get sad when you leave for the day? Does your cat purr because she loves you? Do bears attack when they’re angry? You can’t very well ask them. In fact, scientists haven’t been able to reach a consensus on whether animals even have emotions like humans do, let alone how to study them. Yet studies of animal emotion are critical for understanding human emotion and mental illness. In The Nature of the Beast, pioneering neuroscientist David J. Anderson describes a new approach to solving this problem.

The Navy SEAL teams' elite K9 warriors do it all - from detecting explosives to eliminating the bad guys. These powerful dogs are also some of the smartest and most highly skilled working animals on the planet. Mike Ritland's job is to train them. This is the tale of how Ritland discovered his passion and grew up to train these elite dogs. After becoming a SEAL, he was on combat deployment in Iraq when he saw a military working dog in action, and he instantly knew he'd found his true calling.

First Nations peoples and Native Americans in North America have long believed in the power of spirit animals or totems. They believed that these animals had lessons to teach and healing or inspirational powers. Wayne Arthurson delves into the world of spirit animals and shows the meanings of these animals to Native peoples and how nature has made its mark on their world.

Describes some animals that survive extremely cold temperatures and the different ways that these animals stay warm. Some of the animals shown include the tundra bumblebee, the Alaskan blackfish, the polar bear, and the emperor penguin.

This audiobook introduces a variety of protection devices used by different animals. From hiding to fighting, protection mechanisms are explored.