Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird Paperback – May 21, 2013

BIRKHEAD, Tim. Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird. Walker. 2012. 266 + xxii p, illus., bibliog., index. $25.MARZLUFF, John, and ANGELL, Tony. Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans. Free Press. 2012. 289 + xiv p., illus., bibliog., index. $25.HERZOG, Hal. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals. HarperCollins. 2010. 226 + viii p. $25.99.Good science writing is hard to beat. It's crisp, provides you with new insights into the physical world, and if the writer is good, opens up new worlds to you.Two of these three books -by Birkhead and Marzluff and Angell-- satisfy me on this level. The third -by Herzog-- does not.The two books on birds were part of a larger packet of books I bought from Amazon to satisfy my curiosity about these animals I can't ignore but know little about. I had read one book by Berndt Heinrich, a brilliant animal ethologist, on ravens so I bought three more (one on ravens, one -a classic--on bumblebees, and one autobiographical), which I have yet to read. These two books got caught up in the web of that buying spree.I[m just as interested in our attitudes toward animals -why are some okay to eat and others not? why do some repulse us and others not at all?--so I was looking for books on that topic too, and Herzog's popped up, along with a book by one of my favorite quirky historians, R. W. Bulliett, Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers (2005).This digression is simply to establish that I have a serious, though not scholarly, interest in the topics of animal capabilities and personalities and on how we perceive and relate to different kinds of animals.Birhkead's book on bird senses, and Marzluff's and Angell's on the capabilities and behavior of crows both satisfy me. The information is provides succinctly, the writing is crisp, both Birkhead and Marzluff (Angell is the illustrator) convey their passion about their subjects, and what they write about is fascinating. Both include a good deal of hard scientific information, not surprising given how much their field of studies has been enriched by the use of modern brain mapping techniques, but the hard stuff doesn't overwhelm the lay read (me). Rather, it gives what they write elsewhere credibility. The illustrations in both books are superb, and highly informative, a model of animal science illustrating. Birkhead especially is generous in detailing the contributions of past and other present day scientists in advancing knowledge in his field. Neither author claims too much for what is currently known. And if I haven't said it before, the prose in both of these books is admirably crisp.I bought the book by Hal Herzog because (1) I found the topic fascinating and (2) both Stephen Pinker and Irene Pepperberg, scientists whose books I have enjoyed, praised it. I'll be blunt. I didn't like the book. It's fuzzy where it should be hard, and it ends its stories just about the point I want to follow up on them. In short, although the book contains a great deal of interesting though I am not sure conclusive information on its subject, it's too anecdotal and much too cutesy for my taste. I'm sure a good book could be written on the subject of human tastes for animals but when it's written, it needs to be crisp in style, skeptical in analyzing, and much more compact than this rambling and sporadically entertaining account is.

Birds have graced our world for over 170 million years. During that time they have evolved to fit into a variety ecological niches; thriving on on every continent, from the tropics to the poles and everywhere in between. And they are equally at home in our oceans and fresh water environs, easily diving into deep water, snatching prey from the surface or navigating the trackless seas far from any land. "Bird Sense", written by biologist Tim Birkhead, is a truly amazing book on avian biology. Covering all the senses that you're familiar with as well as a couple you may not have thought of. For most animals, birds included, vision and hearing are of primary importance for their day to day survival. But how good is their vision? Their hearing? Do they perceive the world like we do? And how about touch, smell and taste? These too are a vital part of living. For each of these senses Dr. Birkhead gives an in depth anatomy lesson on how the eyes work, where their ears are located and how the inner ear functions. The discovery of nerve-endings for touch, taste and smell and how they work. An owl can catch mice in near darkness and from some distance away. How do they do that and are all birds just as gifted? Then there's the mystery of migration and how birds can navigate over long distances to arrive at nesting grounds at just the right time. Do they use the landscape or the stars or, maybe, they have some kind of magnetic sense unknown to us? This well written book covers it all, and more, in a easy, conversational, way. For hundreds of years now people have been observing and studying birds, their findings are not always right but they do lead to more research and there's no end in sight. I noticed that some Amazon reviewers down graded the book due an "operation" preformed to remove a "live", and conscious, bat's eyeballs to see if they could still get around their enclosure. As distressing as that sounds keep in mind the author did not preform that operation. It was done back in the mid 18th century by an Italian professor of natural history, Lazzaro Spallanzani, and his findings are a matter of record. I seriously doubt that any modern day biologist would need, or want, to preform such a procedure. Be that as it may Professor Spallanzani's report is only a short segment out of very good book. If your at all interested in birds or biology in general you'll find plenty of fascinating reading in "Bird Sense". I had no downloading or technical problems with this Kindle edition.Last Ranger

Having read other readers’ reviews, I was really looking forward to reading this book. Just to be clear, I have read many other bird books and consider myself an avid birdwatcher; my favourite authors are the likes of Stephen Moss and Dominic Couzens. In contrast, I found this book long-winded and rather dull, with countless references made to often inconsequential experiments from bygone centuries. The only redeeming feature of the book was that it did pick up a bit over the last quarter or so (the chapters on smell and migration were quite interesting) - or maybe I was just relieved that I was coming to the end of it!

A book about bird sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, magnetic sense and emotions - surely not my cup of tea?But this one is. Absolutely fascinating. Not only is Tim Birkhead clearly an expert scientist and bird authority but he tells the story of each of the senses from the discoveries of ages past to current state of the art research.And his descriptions and stories of the characters who observed and studied each of the senses gives the book a real depth. For example the larger than life character Audobon - the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and a servant girl who was born in Haiti in 1785. He made his living from bird illustrations and became a success with his art in Liverpool. He carried out exotic experiments on turkey vultures sense of smell. These led to Richard Owen in 1837 dissecting turkey vultures and revealing their trigeminal nerve to be particularly large - smell not sight was their major source of direction.Some of the discoveries - like the very high pitched radar like sounds emitted and received by bats - came from tangential experience. Sir Hiram Maxim, after the sinking of the Titanic in 1921, developed very low frequency echo sounding to locate icebergs. He was the first to suggest that bats may use sounds inaudible to the human ear to navigate in total darkness, contradicting the conventional belief that bats navigated by touch . It was not until the 1940's that the bats echolocation system was confirmed.Each sense is investigated in detail with different species relying to a greater or lesser extent on different senses: with owls, hearing, with gannets sight, with kiwis smell and touch, with the incubation of eggs tactile sensitivity.The ingenuity of the observations and experiments is combined with cutting edge science involving brain imaging, fitting birds with GPS and touch and temperature sensors. It is probably the magnetic sense - how do migrant birds not just navigate but establish their position - and extent of emotional sense where controversy continues to rage most strongly.This book must be the reference for the current state of knowledge on bird senses. But Birkhead concludes that the understanding of the human sensory system is advancing in leaps and bounds and the golden age of sensory research in birds is still to come. No doubt Birkhead himself will be in the vanguard. And I hope he writes a sequel to reveal the next discoveries in bird sensibility.

I knew next to nothing about birds before reading Bird Sense, but this book has propelled me into a new avian universe and I am hooked. Every other page I had to stop and find someone to grab hold of and tell them what I had just read. Now I look upon birds with awe: at their capacity for seeing - like the kestrel that can pick out a 2mm grub at 18m - at smelling - the kiwi can sniff out worms 15cm below the ground - and most spectacularly - migration - the godwit, for example, which makes an 11,000km, non-stop flight, from Alaska to New Zealand. The book is beautifully written by a man who has spent most of his life intrigued and immersed in ornithology, and to whom I would like to say thank you, this is a work full of wonders.

This book is not just for those with an interest in birds but for all nature lovers because it really does reveal so many of the incredible ways in which birds function, allowing the reader to apply the insights to examples immediately in their own back garden. The senses are picked apart and although some of the examples refer to birds from foreign climes (the Oilbird is particularly fascinating), British birds get frequent mentions and it's now clear to me how a duck knows crumb from dirt when trawling the river in search of food. There is always a danger such a book gets bogged down in scientific jargon that alienates the reader but this one successfully engages to the end, the only frustration being that we do not know all of the answers yet....but then where is the fun in that.

After 'The Wisdom of Birds' I thought that it would be very difficult for anyone to write anything quite so good about birds for a long time. I am pleased to say that I was totally wrong - its been done again, and by the same author! For anyone who has watched birds for any length of time it is not long before they start asking questions such as 'how do they do that?' or 'how can they sense that whereas I can't?'. Tim Birkhead deals with all these questions related to the senses, including magnetic sense and emotions. There is something on almost every page that even the most experienced amateur birdwatcher will not know or about which they will gain a greater understanding. It is so interesting that it is difficult to put down - a great page turner! The great strength of this book is that Tim explains things simply and clearly; he has made scientific knowledge available to all - a great gift! DaveK