Space for Birds: Patterns and Parallels of Beauty and Flight

(Hardback)

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The lives and habitats of two majestic bird species are shared through striking space, aerial, and surface photographs to artfully convey the fragile elegance of life on Earth.

New perspectives can inspire us to think differently about our place in the universe. The first photos of Earth from space showed the home of all known life as a small blue marble in a vast darkness and are thought by many to have inspired the environmental movement. For Dr. Roberta L. Bondar, the first female Canadian astronaut and the worlds first neurologist in space, the rare perspective she enjoyed aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery enhanced her reverence for the world we share with non-human life especially birds, the only animals also able to obtain similar vantages and travel vast distances across the globe.

In Space for Birds: Patterns and Parallels of Beauty and Flight, Bondar, also an accomplished professional nature and landscape photographer, focuses her lens on two species: the endangered Whooping Crane, which migrates from its boreal nesting grounds in Canadas Wood Buffalo National Park to the seaside abundance of its winter habitat in Texas; and the Lesser Flamingo, which is seen in dazzling pink flocks on and above East African Rift Valley soda lakes. Photos from the International Space Station convey the continental scale of these birds travels, and Bondars aerial and surface photos, accompanied by insights both scientific and personal, offer intimate glimpses of their daily lives and unique behaviours. While these birds lead different lives on opposite sides of the globe, they share, with each other and with us, an imperative to survive and a reliance on Earths fragile ecosystems.

Author Bio

The worlds first neurologist in space, and the first female Canadian astronaut, Dr. Roberta L. Bondar is globally recognized for her pioneering contributions to space medicine research, fine art photography, and education on the environment. Aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-42 in 1992, she conducted experiments for eighteen countries in the first International Microgravity Laboratory, a precursor to the International Space Station. For over a decade after her spaceflight, she headed an international research team working with NASA on neurological symptoms recognized after spaceflight, and their connections to neurological diseases on Earth. Trained by NASAs Earth Observations team, Dr. Bondar photographed the Earth on her historic mission. To explore the planet that she had circled 129 times, Dr. Bondar became an honors student in Professional Nature Photography. For her Passionate Vision project, she photographed with medium and large format film cameras, all of Canadas forty-one National Parks and Reserves and Marine Parks as they existed at the turn of the millennium, followed by global arid landscapes and their World Heritage Sites. Dr. Bondars high-resolution digital photographs reveal Earths natural environment, through the lenses of astronaut, medical doctor, photographer, scientist, writer, and zoologist, to create visual stories of hope and inspiration that connect and reconnect people to the natural world of Earth. Private, corporate, and institutional collections in Canada, the USA and the UK hold Dr. Bondars fine art photographic prints. She is the author of several best-selling books featuring her writing and photography. Dr. Bondars distinctions are diverse and include: Companion of the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, the NASA Space Medal, induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and into the International Womens Forums Hall of Fame, many honorary doctorates from Canadian and American Universities, a former Chancellor of Trent University, six Canadian schools in her name, a Specially Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and her own star on Canadas Walk of Fame.