Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Enthralling new books on bird behaviour


Books

Which came first — the bowerbird or the egg?

One’s a perfect genius and the other’s a perfect mystery, say Jennifer Ackerman and Tim Birkhead, in two enthralling new books on bird behaviour

 

Male bowerbirds’ creations look like little art galleries — built to impress the females
Horatio Clare  23 April 2016
 
The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg Tim Birkhead
Bloomsbury, pp.288, £16.99, ISBN: 9781408851258
 
The Genius of Birds Jennifer Ackerman
Corsair, pp.340, £14.99, ISBN: 9781472114358
What is it about birds? They are the wild creatures we see most often, their doings and calls a daily reassurance that humans are not isolated in our sentience. They descend from the first reptiles, while we come from the first mammals. Across a gulf of evolution we contemplate a parallel life which has evolved exhilaratingly different answers to the same questions that existence asks of us. Cross-referencing allows us to address the fundamentals. Darwin and his finches revealed how we came to be. What else might birds teach us?

 

 

Link: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/which-came-first-the-bowerbird-or-the-egg/

 

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