A beautifully illustrated exploration of the ways birds cohabit Featuring dramatic and delightful wild bird colonies and communities, How Birds Live Together offers a broad overview of social living in the avian world. From long-established seabird colonies that use the same cliffs for generations to the fast-shifting dynamics of flock formation, leading wildlife writer Marianne Taylor explores the different ways birds choose to dwell together. Through fascinating text, color photos, maps, and other graphics, Taylor examines the advantages of avian sociality and social breeding. Chapters provide detailed information on diverse types of bird colonies, including those species that construct single-family nests close together in trees; those that share large, communal nests housing multiple families; those that nest in tunnels dug into the earth; those that form exposed colonies on open ground and defend them collectively, relying on ferocious aggression; those that live communally on human-made structures in towns and cities; and more. Taylor discusses the challenges, benefits, hazards, and social dynamics of each style of living, and features a wealth of species as examples. Showcasing colonies from the edge of Scotland and the tropical delta of the Everglades to the Namib Desert in Africa, How Birds Live Together gives bird enthusiasts a vivid understanding of avian social communities.

A beautifully illustrated exploration of the ways birds cohabit Featuring dramatic and delightful wild bird colonies and communities, How Birds Live Together offers a broad overview of social living in the avian world. From long-established seabird colonies that use the same cliffs for generations to the fast-shifting dynamics of flock formation, leading wildlife writer Marianne Taylor explores the different ways birds choose to dwell together. Through fascinating text, color photos, maps, and other graphics, Taylor examines the advantages of avian sociality and social breeding. Chapters provide detailed information on diverse types of bird colonies, including those species that construct single-family nests close together in trees; those that share large, communal nests housing multiple families; those that nest in tunnels dug into the earth; those that form exposed colonies on open ground and defend them collectively, relying on ferocious aggression; those that live communally on human-made structures in towns and cities; and more. Taylor discusses the challenges, benefits, hazards, and social dynamics of each style of living, and features a wealth of species as examples. Showcasing colonies from the edge of Scotland and the tropical delta of the Everglades to the Namib Desert in Africa, How Birds Live Together gives bird enthusiasts a vivid understanding of avian social communities.

Scott Weidensaul follows hawks over the Mexican coastal plains, Bar-tailed Godwits that hitchhike on gale winds 7,000 miles nonstop across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, and the Myriad Songbirds whose numbers have dwindled so dramatically in recent years.

A book to help the ordinary birdwatcher appreciate the fascinating songs, stories, and science of common birds Jack Gedney's studies of birds provide resonant, affirming answers to the questions: Who is this bird? In what way is it beautiful? Why does it matter? Masterfully linking an abundance of poetic references with up-to-date biological science, Gedney shares his devotion to everyday Western birds in fifteen essays. Each essay illuminates the life of a single species and its relationship to humans, and how these species can help us understand birds in general. A dedicated birdwatcher and teacher, Gedney finds wonder not only in the speed and glistening beauty of the Anna's hummingbird, but also in her nest building. He acclaims the turkey vulture's and red-tailed hawk's roles in our ecosystem, and he venerates the inimitable California scrub jay's work planting acorns. Knowing that we hear birds much more often than we see them, Gedney offers his expert's ear to help us not only identify bird songs and calls but also understand what the birds are saying. The crowd at the suet feeder will never look quite the same again. Join Gedney in the enchanted world of these not-so-ordinary birds, each enlivened by a hand-drawn portrait by artist Anna Kus Park.

"[Strycker] thinks like a biologist but writes like a poet." -- Wall Street Journal An entertaining and profound look at the lives of birds, illuminating their surprising world—and deep connection with humanity. Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, the lifelong loves of albatrosses, and other mysteries—revealing why birds do what they do, and offering a glimpse into our own nature. Drawing deep from personal experience, cutting-edge science, and colorful history, Noah Strycker spins captivating stories about the birds in our midst and shares the startlingly intimate coexistence of birds and humans. With humor, style, and grace, he shows how our view of the world is often, and remarkably, through the experience of birds. You’ve never read a book about birds like this one.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, a radical investigation into the bird way of being, and the recent scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds -- how they live and how they think. “There is the mammal way and there is the bird way.” But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries –– What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They are also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own: deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, infanticide, but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play. Some of these extraordinary behaviors are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of, well, birdness: a mother bird that kills her own infant sons, and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds as if they were her own; a bird that collaborates in an extraordinary way with one species—ours—but parasitizes another in gruesome fashion; birds that give gifts and birds that steal; birds that dance or drum, that paint their creations or paint themselves; birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders and birds that summon playmates with a special call—and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, from the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, Jennifer Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect, in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behavior, birds vary. It is what we love about them. As E.O Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.

Engineered by evolution to thrive in the wild A tiny textbook to learn on your own How Birds Work goes beyond the typical field guide to show us not only what birds look like but why. Why do many owls have asymmetrical ear openings? (Hint: It helps them pinpoint prey; see page 40.) And why does the Grey Heron rest on one leg at a time? (Hint: Not because it’s tired; see page 66!) Birds boast a spectacular array of adaptations suited to their incredibly diverse diets and habitats. In this in-depth handbook, discover the ways they’re even more astounding than you know—inside and out. Detailed analysis and illustrations illuminate: Skeleton Muscles Circulation Digestion Respiration Reproduction Feathers Colors and Patterns And much, much more!