Showing posts with label arctic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arctic. Show all posts

Thursday, February 21, 2013

A bird that flew to the Moon?

The book Moonbird by Philip Hoose is about a rufa red knot bird called B95, who is the longest living wild shorebird and has migrated the distance of the Moon and back, earning the nickname "Moonbird". This book lists many scientific facts about the rufa red knot species, their long migratory routes from the top of the world to the bottom and things you can do to help endangered species like the red knot. The book also had an entire chapter dedicated to the horseshoe crab, a species that is dying out from humans, and causing the red knots, who eat the crab eggs, to be in danger. The book also had conservationist and scientist's profiles, so you could learn a bit about the people that are trying to help protect endangered shorebirds.

This is a picture of B95, from nature.org
I thought this book was fine. Usually I enjoy scientific books, but this one after only ten pages I was incredibly bored. It felt like a chore, and books should not feel like a chore. I did think the scientific facts about how the shorebirds find food and gather tons of fuel for their incredibly long journey from the arctic to the very southern tip of South America was interesting and all. I think that if the author sort of made a story out of this book, it would've been a lot better. I think it would've been easy to make a story out of the migration of the red knots, but the book instead seemed sort of jumbled up with random facts about B95 and his species appearing randomly in the middle of the book where that didn't seem to be related with what the author was currently talking about. Also, the facts about how far the birds travel or how they eat horseshoe crab eggs came up too much. The book was way to repetitive.

Out of a possible 10, I gave Moonbird a 7.

In general, if you want to learn about incredible birds and their long journeys, read Moonbird.




A large flock of Rufa Red Knots feeding, from abcbirds.org.



Thursday, February 14, 2013

Arctic Wolves



Hello guys! This is a blog about my book called Never Cry Wolf by Farly Mowat. I learned about the lives of arctic wolfs which, at the time have not been studied. He talks about his experiences in the arctic tundra to meeting eskimos to chasing down wolves for miles. It would have you laughing up and down and keeping you in suspense. The eskimo tells him that wolves can talk and shockingly he deciphers stuff that the wolves say about the caribou. He even calls his wolves names like Sandy Lou or George. I really enjoyed this book because it gave me knowledge that I have never heard before. Like I never knew that the wolfs changed there diet with the seasons as the caribou came and went. In the summer they ate bugs and whatever they can find until the caribou can come back. The wolves often followed the caribou during the migrations. I would give this book three out of five stars. It had information but it was less drama and more facts and information .

                               
 The wolves are as I found out an extremely temperamental species eating virtually anything it can eat. The book was not very long so there was not as much information as I hoped but it was an enjoyable book and I feel others will like it as much as I do.