By Tim Birkhead
Walker & Company, 265 pages, $25.00
Great Book About Birds!
No serious bird watcher or anyone interested in biology should be without Bird Sense, a wonderful book about birds. Tim Birkhead combines biology, field work, personal experience with birds, and historical references. It is a science book without the dry scientific treatise of the subject—writing is excellent and very readable even for those without biological background.
“In this book I have discussed the different sense of birds one at a time.”
Following a long preface introducing the subject, Birkhead writes seven extensive chapters on the seven senses of birds: seeing, hearing, touch, taste, smell, magnetic sense and emotions. There are many stories, experiments and experiences related to birds throughout these chapters that occurred all over the world during field work and at home in England. Each chapter is preceded by a beautiful black-and-white illustration of a bird and a historic quote. Still, this is a biological book without the encumbrance of scientific jargon and terminology. The author devotes full fifty pages to Notes, Bibliography, Glossary and Index for readers who wish to delve into a specific subject in more detail. This medium-sized book is not a field guide but a book to read and enjoy a chapter at time—it will be a fascinating read.
Reviewed by George Erdosh
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