Search results for ""Author Charles Fergus""

Make a Home for Wildlife helps you see your property in new ways and is the resource you need to take the sometimes daunting steps to improve the quality of your land. According to U.S. Forest Service, 250 million acres of woods and forests in the United States are privately held by 10 million individuals/families. Whether you live on a quarter-acre lot in the suburbs, own a 20-acre woodland retreat, run a farm of 100 acres, or belong to an outdoor club with hundreds or thousands of acres, you can make changes to the land—improvements that will turn your property into a better home for wildlife. Habitat projects can be simple or complex, short-term or spanning decades. Cost can be minimal—a few hours of your time spent doing pleasant work in the outdoors—or can run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars. And there is funding to help landowners make wildlife habitat. Focusing on the eastern US from Canada to Florida and west to the Great Plains, this book describes basic habitat types—forest, shrublands, grasslands, and wetlands—and highlights over 150 select native and introduced trees, shrubs, and plants, explaining how they are used—or not—by wildlife. The book includes more than 100 profiles of prominent and interesting species of insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals with information on animals and their habitat needs. Large and small mammals, resident and migratory birds, and insects are covered. Fergus relates stories of landowners who have made habitat in different states and regions in different ways.

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For fans of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series, a fabulous historical mystery series set in early America.Set in 1835 in the Pennsylvania town of Adamant, Fergus's first novel in a new mystery series introduces Sheriff Gideon Stoltz, who, as a young deputy, is thrust into his position by the death of the previous sheriff. Gideon faces his first real challenge as death rocks the small town again when the respected judge Hiram Biddle commits suicide. No one is more distraught than Gideon, whom the old judge had befriended as a mentor and hunting partner. Gideon is regarded with suspicion as an outsider: he's new to town, and Pennsylvania Dutch in the back-country Scotch-Irish settlement. And he found the judge's body.Making things even tougher is the way the judge's death stirs up vivid memories of Gideon's mother's murder, the trauma that drove him west from his home in the settled Dutch country of eastern Pennsylvania. He had also discovered her body.At first Gideon simply wants to learn why Judge Biddle killed himself. But as he finds out more about the judge's past, he realizes that his friend's suicide was spurred by much more than the man's despair. Gideon's quest soon becomes more complex as it takes him down a dangerous path into the past.A Stranger Here Below is so atmospheric, so compelling and convincing, that readers will taste the grit of the dirt roads, cringe at the unsanitary conditions and medical superstitions that inflame a flu epidemic, and marvel at the immensely arduous task of carrying out an investigation using the primitive tools of the early 1800s. Fergus leaves us breathlessly waiting for the next Gideon Stoltz mystery.

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A Rough-Shooting Dog is the compelling account of a man and his best friend--an English springer spaniel named Jenny. The author chronicles the training and first hunting season of his beloved canine friend and hunting companion, taking the reader into the field in pursuit of woodcock, pheasant, and grouse--noting that the two are a team and must work closely together in order to be successful hunters. Fergus discusses the roughshoots: cattail slough, beaver pond, alder jungle, and old orchards--all the while teaching the reader a little about life.It is a book about the dramas, joys, and frustrations of hunting with a dog--and a reflection about land, wildlife, and the ways in which these facets of the natural world can be experienced fully through upland bird hunting. A Rough-Shooting Dog won't disappoint.

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