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Bird Sense: What It's Like To Be A Bird (2012)

by Tim Birkhead(Favorite Author)

3.94 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0802779662 (ISBN13: 9780802779663)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Walker & Company

review 1: Tim Birkhead's encyclopedic work is absorbing and immensely researched. As Tim promises, the book doesn't use a lot of jargons but lucid prose, anecdotes and research material to walk the reader through the senses of birds and throws light on how superior they are. Bird Sense weaves through the topic with the help of interesting stories, quotes and insights derived from Tim's own life and proves to be a great read.
review 2: BIRD SENSE: What It’s Like to be a Bird. (2012). Tim Birkhead. ****.The author of this book is a Professor of Animal Behavior at the University of Sheffield, and has been studying birds for 40 (?) years. In this work, he examines the various senses of birds to see how similar and/or different from those of humans. One of the difficu... morelties in this field is the tendency to anthropomorphize such studies, but the author avoids this as much as possible, and takes the various birds as they are – at least as much science has shown them to be. He examines the following senses: Seeing, Hearing, Touching, Taste, Smell, Magnetic Sense, and Emotions. First, the sense of sight: William Harvey said, in the mid-1600s, birds’ eyes outwardly appear small, because excepting the pupils they are wholly covered with skin and feathers. In fact, relative to their body size, the eyes of birds are almost twice as large as those of most mammals. The author then goes on to describe the anatomy of birds’ eyes and how it varies among various species depending on the bird’s habitats and needs. Fascinating stuff. He does the same for the other senses, moving about freely among various birds to point out differences and the reasons for them on a scientific basis. This is another one of those books that you want to mark up appropriate sections so that you can read them to your friends at your next get-together. The approach is science-based, with the exception of the final chapter on Emotions. Frankly, there isn’t much science has to say about emotions. It cannot distinguish what we call emotions from animal instincts. I learned a lot from this work – especially from the chapter on Magnetic Sense. I am not a birder myself, but I can fully understand the passion that they bring to their hobby – especially after reading this well written book. Recommended. less

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