Swallow and starling, puffin and peregrine, blue tit and blackcap. We use these names so often that few of us ever pause to wonder about their origins. What do they mean? Where did they come from? And who created them?The words we use to name birds are some of the most lyrical and evocative in the English language. They alsotell incredible stories: of epic expeditions, fierce battles between rival ornithologists, momentous historicalevents and touching romantic gestures.Through fascinating encounters with birds, and the rich cast of characters who came up with their names, inMrs Moreau's Warbler Stephen Moss takes us on a remarkable journey through time. From when humans and birds first shared the earth to our fraught present-day coexistence, Moss shows how these names reveal as much about ourselves and our relationship with the natural world as about the creatures they describe.

Stephen Moss's collection of Guardian 'Birdwatch' columns forms a fascinating picture of one man's birding life: from early coot-watching as a young boy, through teenage cycle trips to Dungeness, to adult travels around the world as a TV producer working everywhere from the Gambia to Antarctica. Drawing on nearly twenty years of columns for the Guardian, Stephen covers local, national and foreign birding encounters. From the (varying) excitement and peace of his chosen pursuit, to the growing uncertainties posed by climate change, the author brings an enthusiasm and sincerity to the subject that will energise even the most fair-weather of birdwatchers. This elegant paperback edition features a truly beautiful cover linocut illustration by Robert Gillmor, the doyen of bird artists whose jackets grace all the illustrious Collins New Naturalist volumes.

The village of Mark on the Somerset Levels is a watery wonderland, rich in wildlife: rooks and roe deer; sparrows and snowdrops; buzzards, badgers and butterflies; the iconic brown hare and the spectacular hummingbird hawk-moth. As the year unfolds, Stephen Moss witnesses the landscape as it passes from deep snow to spring blossom, through the heat haze of summer to the chill winds of autumn; from the first hazel catkins to the swallows returning from Africa; from the sounds of the dawn chorus to the nocturnal mysteries of moths. Wild Hares and Hummingbirds is both the story of a small corner of the West Country and a celebration of the natural world.

The earth lies shaken in the aftermath of a conspiracy. Some of the smartest minds on the planet have striven for and died in an effort to scour the skies of four vast alien satellites, but their success has brought a terrible vengeance down upon us. While alien Agents stalk the earth, a team of exhausted scientists and military outcasts struggle to fight them amongst a planet on the brink. The brink of plague, the brink of war, and the brink of an invasion larger than they can possibly imagine. But they have allies. Two of the alien Agents have forsaken their homes, their families, their very species to stop the greatest act of genocide any of them has ever known. John and Shahim have great abilities. They carry with them the knowledge we need to save humanity and take us into a new and marvelous age. But Lana and the remaining enemy Agents are far from defeated. As they begin to reap havoc among the diseased and bereft, Neal, Ayala, and Barrett must find a way to achieve the impossible, by fair means or foul they must unite the world’s disparate nations. And they must do so quickly, for the Armada is fast approaching, and behind the great fires of their decelerating engines, the huge fleet is readying itself for war.

In eleven years time, a million members of an alien race will arrive at Earth. Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships’ huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space.These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out. Their technology is vastly superior to ours, and they know they cannot possibly lose the coming conflict. But they, like us, have found no answer to the destructive force of the atom, and they have no intention of facing the onslaught of our primitive nuclear arsenal, or the devastation it would wreak on the planet they crave. So they have flung out an advanced party in front of them, hidden within one of the countless asteroids randomly roaming the void. They do not want us, they want our planet. Their Agents are arriving.