The Bird Way by Jennifer AckermanPublished by: Scribe Publications
Genre: Non-Fiction
Source: Publisher
Pages: 368
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, here is a radical examination of the bird way of being and of 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.’ This is one scientist’s pithy distinction between mammal brains and bird brains: two ways to make a highly intelligent mind. But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and, lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviours.
What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, and survive. They’re also revealing not only the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, and disturbing abilities we once considered uniquely our own — deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, and infanticide — but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play.
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, Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect — in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behaviour — birds vary. It’s what we love about them.
As E.O. Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.
What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, and survive. They’re also revealing not only the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, and disturbing abilities we once considered uniquely our own — deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, and infanticide — but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play.
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, Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect — in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behaviour — birds vary. It’s what we love about them.
As E.O. Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.
Jennifer Ackerman's passion for her subject shines through in this absolute delight of a book. Insightful and a joy to read, The Bird Way provides inspiration to look up and around at these creatures which we have so much to learn from!
Author Interview with Jennifer Ackerman
Author Interview with Jennifer Ackerman
Thank you! Working on The Bird Way was pure joy. For all three of my bird-related books, I spent a great deal of time in the field with ornithologists and other bird researchers, which is what I really love to do. Some of my books, such as Chance in the House of Fate and Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream (SSEDD), involved a lot of deep and difficult research on molecular biology and human biology, reading papers and talking with scientists about the genetic and cellular mechanisms we share with other organisms or the way the body works. Then my task was to try to translate the hard science into a lively and accessible narrative about the natural history of inheritance (Chance) or what’s going on in the body over the course of a 24-hour day (SSEDD). For The Genius of Birds and The Bird Way, too, I read numerous papers, but I also traveled around the world to explore bird intelligence and behavior with experts at their field study sites and to meet their birds. I loved every minute of these experiences, especially in Australia.
The birds in your backyard or local park are
worth watching, especially for their behavior. There’s no such thing as a
boring bird!
It’s worth putting in the time to learn
birding by ear. I’ve never been very
good at identifying birds by their calls, but it’s an invaluable skill and
enriches birdwatching enormously. I love
to go out in the field with people who are really good at this.
Once you start, you’ll never want to
stop. Birdwatching reminds you that
you’re part of a world that’s big and beautiful and wildly diverse.
Stumbling on a male Superb Lyrebird performing
on his mound in the Toolangi rainforest. I was with my friend Andrew Skeoch, a
superb wildlife sound recording artist, looking for the lyrebirds. We had slogged up a very wet trail and seen
signs of the birds everywhere, scratchings in the soil, and we could hear them
from a great distance. But they seemed to be always just out of sight. Finally,
late in the day, on the way back down through the forest, we heard one burst
into glorious song just up the bank from the trail. It was a magnificent,
resonant, booming voice, and Andrew stood next to me whispering the names of all
the birds of the forest that the lyrebird was imitating. (Later, I’d learn how
the lyrebird actually uses its mimicry to lie to other birds!) The lyrebird
flashed its spectacular lyre-shaped tail feathers, and then it was gone. Utterly
magical.
It’s really hard to pick just one. Meeting the Kea Parrots of New Zealand was a delight. I first met them in an aviary in Austria, the
world’s biggest lab for studying Kea. I was warned to take off all of my
jewelry, my watch, my barrettes, etc. before I went into their aviary because
the birds are so inquisitive, they’ll explore everything they can get their
beaks on. I fell in love with them
almost immediately. They are incredibly bold, curious, smart, and just
downright adorable. In their native New
Zealand, they’re called “Clowns of the Mountains” because they’re so cheeky,
funny, and playful. And it’s their use of
play that I found particularly intriguing. But I won’t give that away here.
In so many ways. For one thing, focusing on a
form of life other than our own helps us understand that we’re not unique in
the ways we once thought we were. We share intelligence, behaviours, emotions,
and consciousness with birds and other animals. Also, birds model fascinating
behaviors. Species of all kinds cooperate and collaborate in everything from
hunting, courting, and migrating, to raising and defending their young,
sometimes even across species lines. Invariably, it boosts their success. Birds
demonstrate the benefits of living in diverse social groups and working
together to solve problems. They show us how to be flexible and adapt—and even
the great benefits of play.
What has been your career highlight so far?
Researching and writing bird books!
What do you think still needs to be discovered about the bird world and how to conserve endangered species?
We have much to learn. For so many threatened,
rare, or elusive bird species, there’s a scarcity of biological information
about breeding habits, movement, and ecology, information needed to assess the
status of bird populations and to manage their conservation effectively. The Australian researchers I spoke with--to a
person--all lamented the paucity of research, the critical knowledge gaps about
threatened and endangered species that prevent good management. One of the brilliant researchers addressing
this issue is Rob Heinsohn, a conservation biologist at Australian National
Univeristy.
Rob runs a research program
called the Difficult Bird Research Group (DBRG) dedicated to studying
Australia’s most endangered birds and understanding their ecology and
conservation. Rob says that these birds, such as the Orange-billed Parrot,
the Swift Parrot, the Regent Honeyeater, the Superb Parrot, the Forty-spotted Pardalote,
and several others, often fall into the “too hard basket” because they’re difficult
to find, often occurring in remote, wild, and rugged terrain, and highly
mobile, moving around a lot. The DBRG
conducts research aimed at understanding these species and pulling them back
from the ‘brink’ of extinction.
Could you give us a sneak peek at what you're working on next?
Another bird book, this one focused on a
particular bird family that’s ubiquitous and beloved around the world. That’s all I’ll say for now!
About the author
Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science, nature,
and human biology for almost three decades. Her most recent books include Sex
Sleep Eat Drink Dream: a day in the life of your body; Ah-Choo: the
uncommon life of the common cold; Chance in the House of Fate: a natural
history of heredity; The Genius of Birds; and Birds by the Shore. A
contributor to Scientific American, National Geographic, The New York
Times, and many other publications, Ackerman is the recipient of a
National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction, a Bunting
Fellowship, and a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
