To see accurate pricing, please choose your delivery country.
 
 
United States
£ GBP
All Shops

British Wildlife

8 issues per year 84 pages per issue Subscription only

British Wildlife is the leading natural history magazine in the UK, providing essential reading for both enthusiast and professional naturalists and wildlife conservationists. Published eight times a year, British Wildlife bridges the gap between popular writing and scientific literature through a combination of long-form articles, regular columns and reports, book reviews and letters.

Subscriptions from £33 per year

Conservation Land Management

4 issues per year 44 pages per issue Subscription only

Conservation Land Management (CLM) is a quarterly magazine that is widely regarded as essential reading for all who are involved in land management for nature conservation, across the British Isles. CLM includes long-form articles, events listings, publication reviews, new product information and updates, reports of conferences and letters.

Subscriptions from £26 per year
Academic & Professional Books  Ornithology  Passerines

The Blue Tit

Monograph
By: Martyn Stenning(Author)
320 pages, 8 plates with colour photos and 1 colour map; 10 b/w illustrations, tables
The Blue Tit
Click to have a closer look
Average customer review
  • The Blue Tit ISBN: 9781472937384 Hardback Feb 2018 In stock
    £49.99
    #235119
Price: £49.99
About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Related titles
Images Additional images
The Blue TitThe Blue TitThe Blue TitThe Blue TitThe Blue TitThe Blue Tit

About this book

Sporting a mix of blue, yellow, white, green and black, the Blue Tit is unmistakable. It is thriving well in a world dominated by humans, taking advantage of our propensity to feed birds and provide nest-boxes. In turn, this charismatic species provides an excellent model for research, and currently features in around 100 scientific papers annually. This new Poyser is the result of a personal quest by author Martyn Stenning to bring these discoveries together in one accessible volume. The text initially invites readers into the intimate life of breeding Blue Tits and describes how nature has shaped their destiny. Moving on to the diversification and classification of Blue Tit variation across their range, the story progresses into population structure, life-time ecology and mortality, culminating in an exploration of factors that determine breeding success. The Blue Tit concludes with a genial selection of anecdotes, folklore and poetry.

Contents

Chapter One - Beginnings
Chapter Two - Taxonomy, distribution and variation
Chapter Three - Population structure, demography and mortality
Chapter Four - Determinants of Blue Tit breeding success
Chapter Five - Blue Tits in research; history, methods and applications
Chapter Six - Anecdotes, folklore and poetry

Glossary
References

Customer Reviews (1)

  • At last a book on the Blue Tit!
    By Keith 19 Jul 2019 Written for Hardback
    For most of us, the Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus will have been one of the first birds we saw as a child, and so it holds a special connection for many people. Even if you were not interested in birds you may have enjoyed making a nest box at school – and the main beneficiary would probably have been Blue Tits. Our strong affiliation with this species continues well into adult life. For example, 100 scientific papers are written about factors affecting Blue Tit ecology every year and of the 268 bird species ringed in the UK in 2016, the largest number were Blue Tits – with over 100,000 of them! Indeed over 4 million of them have been ringed in the UK in just over a century! So, it comes as a surprise to me that until now there has never been a monograph about this common breeding species.

    Martyn Stenning has studied Blue Tits in Sussex for many years and wrote a PhD thesis on them in 1995. In this book, he combines his own work with that of many other researchers across Europe. An initial chapter gives a very good overview of how Blue Tits live, and on its own this section alone would make an excellent small publication, describing some of the challenges they face and the solutions they have developed to succeed.

    There are nine generally accepted races of the Blue Tit with one – obscurus – which is unique to the UK. Closely related (and formerly lumped with Blue Tit by some authorities), the African Blue Tit Cyanistes teneriffae has seven races of its own in North Africa and the Canary Islands. Both this species and the Azure Tit Cyanistes cyanus are discussed.

    Population structure, demography and mortality is the subject of another chapter, with extremes being very much evident. Some Blue Tits live in remote primaeval forests in Eastern Europe, while others live right alongside us, nesting in a wide range of cavities. This is an extraordinarily successful species, adapting to a modern world and thriving. Indeed, the UK population is rising when so many other species are doing badly. Another chapter explores the determinants of Blue Tit breeding success. On the one hand, Great Spotted Woodpeckers can help Blue Tits by creating holes in trees and widening existing cracks, but also at other times they prey upon the Blue Tits themselves. Bringing research together from across Europe the author compares data on the timing of nest-building and egg-laying, with the birds being able to delay the hatching of their chicks in the event of a cold-weather spell. Such studies are the subject of another chapter which reviews major analyses of Blue Tits over long periods of time. Finally, there is a discussion on anecdotes, folklore and poetry where writers have celebrated Blue Tits in many ways.

    Several tables summarise results from the author’s own research in Sussex, and around 350 papers are listed for future reference. As has become the norm with Poyser monographs, there is a huge amount of detail about every aspect of Blue Tit life within the six chapters. There is a lot of information packed into this book, but written in a friendly style that demonstrates the author’s real affection for the species. Line drawings by Alan Harris break up the text, and there are eight pages of colour photographs of the various Blue Tit races and some aspects of the research discussed. At last, one of our commonest birds has been given the full treatment that it deserves!
    4 of 4 found this helpful - Was this helpful to you? Yes No

Biography

Martyn Stenning developed an interest in natural history very early on in his childhood. From 'Microscope Monitor' at primary school to a focus on science at secondary school, as well as an avid reader of wildlife books and investigator of nature, he was destined for the academic study of ecology. Following an HND in Biology, Martyn joined the University of Sussex Biological Sciences team in 1976. He gained a master's degree by thesis on Pied Flycatchers in 1984, followed by a DPhil on Blue Tits in 1995, and produced several scientific publications on these species. Other subjects of study have included chalk downland plants, tropical aquatic snails, Dormice and – inevitably – other bird species.

Monograph
By: Martyn Stenning(Author)
320 pages, 8 plates with colour photos and 1 colour map; 10 b/w illustrations, tables
Media reviews

"This deceptively slim volume packs a mass of information about one of our most familiar birds into its pages [...] "
– David Parkin, British Birds 111 (October 2018)

"[...] I was really looking forward to the publication of this monograph and certainly wasn't disappointed. [...] comprehensive coverage – illustrated throughout with engaging line drawings [...] With newly fledged Blue Tits filling the woodland air with their squeaky contact calls, perhaps now is the time to become much better acquainted with the ecology of one of our best-loved species? You could do little better than to immerse yourself in a copy of this incredibly detailed and well-researched book."
– Justin Walker, BTO book reviews

"[...] As has become the norm with Poyser monographs, there is a huge amount of detail about every aspect of Blue Tit life within the six chapters. There is a lot of information packed into this book, but it is written in a friendly style that demonstrates the author’s real affection for the species. Line drawings by Alan Harris break up the text, and there are eight pages of colour photographs of the various Blue Tit races and some aspects of the research discussed. At last, one of our commonest birds has been given the treatment that it deserves!"
– Keith Betton, British Wildlife 29(4), April 2018

Current promotions
New and Forthcoming BooksNHBS Moth TrapBritish Wildlife MagazineBuyers Guides