Böcker av Mike O'Connor

Firecrow is a beautifully written novel for readers from 10 years upwards. Set in the 1980s, the tale takes place on the dramatic coastline of the West of Cornwall. There two children find an injured bird and rescue it. The bird is a Cornish chough, a rare and iconic species. When the bird is released into the wild, the children help guard its nest against many hazards, natural and man-made. This engaging story subtly explores local history, folklore and customs, natural history, and contemporary issues. The tale gently educates as it entertains; and is a brilliant successor to the much praised 'Moon over Pennycomequick' and 'Seal Song.' If you love Cornwall and love wild-life, you will love this book.

Traditional tales with strong messages retold with relevance for the 21st century

Traditional tales retold by a professional storyteller

Children's folk tales from Cornwall especially selected by a professional storyteller

In 1983, Mike O'Connor opened the Bird Watcher's General Store on Cape Cod, which might well have been the first store devoted solely to birding in the United States. Since that time he has answered thousands of questions about birds, both at his store and while walking down the aisles of the supermarket. The questions have ranged from inquiries about individual species ("e;Are flamingos really real?"e;) to what and when to feed birds ("e;Should I bring in my feeders for the summer?"e;) to the down-and-dirty specifics of backyard birding ("e;Why are the birds dropping poop in my pool?"e;). Answering the questions has been easy; keeping a straight face has been hard.Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches? is the solution for the beginning birder who already has a book that explains the slight variation between Common Ground-Doves and Ruddy Ground-Doves but who is really much more interested in why birds sing at 4:30 A.M. instead of 7:00 A.M., or whether it's okay to feed bread to birds, or how birds rediscover your feeders so quickly when you've just filled them after a long vacation. Or, for that matter, whether flamingos are really real.

As recently as 2008, when Presidents Bush and Obama acted to bail out the nation's crashing banks and failing auto companies, the perennial objection erupted anew: government has no business in . . . business. Mike O'Connor argues in this book that those who cite history to decry government economic intervention are invoking a tradition that simply does not exist. In a cogent and timely take on this ongoing and increasingly contentious debate, O'Connor uses deftly drawn historical analyses of major political and economic developments to puncture the abiding myth that business once operated apart from government. From its founding to the present day, our commercial republic has always mixed--and battled over the proper balance of--politics and economics. Contesting the claim that the modern-day libertarian conception of U.S. political economy represents the "natural" American economic philosophy, O'Connor demonstrates that this perspective has served historically as only one among many. Beginning with the early national debate over the economic plans proposed by Alexander Hamilton, continuing through the legal construction of the corporation in the Gilded Age and the New Deal commitment to full employment, and concluding with contemporary concerns over lowering taxes, this book demonstrates how the debate over government intervention in the economy has illuminated the possibilities and limits of American democratic capitalism.

A collection of humorous Q&As about everything you've always wanted to ask about birds and birding Mike O'Connor knows bird watchers as well as he knows birds. He knows that if you're even slightly interested in identifying birds or attracting them to your backyard with a feeder, then you've also had your share of strange and silly questions about birds and their sometimes inexplicable behavior. In Why Do Bluebirds Hate Me?, O'Connor applies his deep knowledge of all things avian to answer the questions that keep birders up at night. Questions like Should you clean your birdhouses? Do swallows have a feather fetish? How much does it cost to run a heated birdbath? Is drinking coffee bad for birds? Other questions O'Connor covers range from the practical (Should I rotate the seed in my feeder?) to the quirky (Why are vultures eating my vinyl screen door?) to the just plain adorable (Are those birds kissing or feeding each other?). And he also explains why bluebirds just don't seem to like some people.

Cornish folk tales

Manfred von Richthofen became a fighter pilot on the Western Front in August 1916. By January 1917, Ruchthofen had shot down fifteen aircraft had been appointed commander of his own unit. He painted the fuselage of his Albatros D-III a bright red was was nicknamed the Red Baron.