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5 books match the query 'McGehee, Claudia'

cover of A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet

A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet

Claudia McGehee

University of Iowa Press, 2004

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cover of A Woodland Counting Book

A Woodland Counting Book

Claudia McGehee

University of Iowa Press, 2006

Towering oak and hickory woodlands once fringed the tallgrass prairie of the Midwest. In a wondrous mixture of plant and animal life, big mammals like black bears and cougars thrived alongside gray foxes and ovenbirds. But as more people arrived, the woodlands, like the tallgrass prairie, were cleared with amazing speed. Now only small portions of this special habitat remain, and many of its animals and plants are endangered or extinct. Despite the great loss, many people are working to restore and enlarge what remains so that woodlands can continue to support a rich wildlife community. And so we can all enjoy a walk in the woods. A Woodland Counting Book helps children learn about the woodland family. From one splendid white oak to fifty busy carpenter ants, illustrator Claudia McGehee counts the wonders of the woodlands in this beautifully illustrated companion to her previous children’s book, A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet. As she follows spring to summer to fall to winter, returning at the book’s end to springtime in “one woodland community,” McGehee introduces more than twenty species of plants and animals. From the white oaks that tower overhead to shelter the woodland citizens to the delicate showy lady’s-slipper orchid and from the barred owls with distinctive hoots and calls to tiny evening bats which roost in hollow trees, we meet a wild world of woodland life. We find luna moths and serviceberries, shagbark hickories, blue spotted salamanders, wild turkeys, red squirrels, orchard orioles, and a host of other familiar and not-so-familiar plants and animals. A section of woodland notes gives common and scientific names of and interesting information about all featured species. These vibrantly colored scratchboard illustrations reveal the beauty of our woodland communities, guiding nature lovers and children of all ages through a much-loved landscape.
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cover of Creekfinding: A True Story

Creekfinding

A True Story

Jacqueline Briggs Martin

University of Minnesota Press, 2017

Once upon a time a creek burbled up and tumbled across a prairie valley. It was filled with insects and brook trout that ate them, frogs that chirruped and birds watching for bugs and fish. This is a true story about a man named Mike who went looking for that creek long after it was buried under fields of corn. It is the story of how a creek can be brought back to life, and with it a whole world of nature. 

In the words of award-winning author Jacqueline Briggs Martin and the enchanting illustrations by Claudia McGehee, this heartening tale of an ecosystem restored in the Driftless Area of northeast Iowa unfolds in a way that will charm and inform young readers who are drawn to a good mystery, the wonders of nature—and, of course, big earth-moving machines.

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cover of The Iowa Nature Calendar

The Iowa Nature Calendar

Jean C. Prior

University of Iowa Press, 2007

One of the joys of midwestern living is the variety brought by the changing seasons. The lyrical text of The Iowa Nature Calendar brings a year to life—perpetually—through a daily appreciation of the chirping, blooming, singing details of Iowa’s natural world.
Because keeping track of past years’ observations will enrich your enjoyment of the current year, each month has ample room to add your own notes on blooming wildflowers, nesting birds, semaphoring ?reflies, and clicking cricket frogs as well as birthdays, anniversaries, and other annual celebrations.
The authors, both long-time Iowa naturalists, have included birth dates of notable Iowa conservationists, nature-related events from Bald Eagle Days to Christmas Bird Counts to the annual Frog and Toad Survey, and the names of the full moons from January’s Wolf Moon to December’s Long Night Moon. Particularly user-friendly are their suggestions for visits to state parks and preserves; for example, look for bison calves at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in June and spectacular flocks of migrating snow geese at DeSoto Bend Wildlife Refuge in October. They also remind you to put up purple martin houses and bat boxes in the spring, sign up for a class at Lakeside Laboratory in the summer, clean out your bluebird boxes in the fall, and watch for the glow of the aurora borealis in wintertime. Throughout they present intriguing, well-chosen information certain to appeal to all nature lovers from amateur gardeners to professional botanists.
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cover of Where Do Birds Live?

Where Do Birds Live?

Claudia McGehee

University of Iowa Press, 2010

Claudia McGehee brought the glory of the prairie to life in A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet and explored the wonders of the woodlands in A Woodland Counting Book. Now this award-winning artist focuses on the birds of the United States, bringing children and their parents closer to the habitats and lives of birds from the Pacific coast to open rangeland to the cityscape of Manhattan.

McGehee introduces us to fourteen representative habitats, giving each its own double-page spread that features a signature bird. She devotes one page of each spread to depicting the bird in the full complexity of its complete habitat—at home in its environment with other animal companions—and the other page describes and illustrates its nesting, feeding, soaring, and paddling lifeways. Highlighting ideas for preserving and protecting each habitat and its inhabitants, McGehee also provides ways that children can make their own backyards safe havens for birdlife while they learn to enjoy the magic of birdwatching.

Claudia’s birds include bobolinks on the tallgrass prairie, common ravens in the Pacific rainforest, brown pelicans on barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico, scarlet tanagers in the northwoods, red-cockaded woodpeckers in longleaf pine forests, greater roadrunners in the southwestern desert, and roseate spoonbills in red mangrove forests. Her energizing, engaging illustrations create worlds of vibrant color that ring with the calls and songs of birds across the panorama of American landscapes.

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