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Homing Instinct (2014)

by Bernd Heinrich(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

130652847X (ISBN13: 9781306528474)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Houghton Mifflin

review 1: Brend Heinrich is naturalist, woodsman, outdoorsman and scientist. While I'm not a fan of his writing style, this is a very compelling book. Heinrich ties human behavior to that of other species. He has a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of all life. A host of animals, from insects, to birds, to mammals, illustrates the message. The meaning of home and why it matters is central. Highly recommended.
review 2: We're familiar with birds migrating even if we don't know exactly how they get to precise places each year. We also know that salmon can find their way back to the same rivers and lakes where they were born, and eels do that in reverse, being born in the ocean and spending their lives in rivers before returning to the ocean to spawn. But these... more behaviors extend to many other animals and in different ways. Some butterflies migrate, and even though they may not complete the journey, their offspring will. Grasshoppers swarm at certain times of the year, bees find their way back to the hive, and ants return to the nest. How do pigeons know where home is, or sea birds find land, or turtles migrate? And what about people? Aren't we drawn to home, if not always, at least at different periods of our lives?This is a wide-ranging book that looks at the science behind many of these behaviors and it's so much more than just migration. Sometimes animals use polar magnetics to orient themselves, and other times it's the sun. Sometimes it's visual cues or scents, and other times it's simply the influence of the crowd, and more often than not our understanding of it all falls a little short - and yet it's interesting how amazing the world around us is. And while I found the book interesting, I just didn't find it very compelling - I mostly enjoyed it, but it's not one that continues to leave me thoughtful afterward. Heinrich has an easy and poetic style of writing, but I felt the book really bogged down as he went into unusual detail about his own "homing" back to the Maine woods for deer hunting each year. More interesting was his experiments with planting chestnut trees or even the spider living over his cabin desk, but the book lagged in these parts. Still, it's an interesting and inspiring book even if it rambles too much. less

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