Krishna
Right from the introduction, the book is vastly interesting! It is a natural science book, one of my favourite subjects but even if it is not yours, you will enjoy the book for the wealth of information it sheds on birds
For instance, right on page 1 we learn that some swifts can sleep while flying, with perhaps half their brains switched off. Also there is a type of parrot that sleeps hanging upside down, like bats. Some hummingbirds can reach a death-like torpor after dark to conserve energy!
Also, he talks about the amazing homing instincts of pigeons (and I think that is why they were used as mail carriers in ancient times). He says that pigeons were first domesticated 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia, even before chickens were! Experiments showed that birds can ‘see’ the magnetic field as an aid to their migration / navigation but through only one eye.
But when he moves on to the topic of starling murmuration, we get a bit bored – that is if you have already read about complex patterns forming from simple rules. I do not blame the author for it because he has no way of knowing what we have read before, but the explanation is elementary and your mind keeps telling you ‘I knew it already’ again and again. But then it gets better when the author discusses the amount of starlings in a single group and compares it with smaller and larger groupings (for instance fire ants, locusts and passenger pigeons). Fascinating again! After reading more of this, I declare that the book is uniformly fascinating. It is just that this section was a bit of old hat for me.
The chapter about the Turkey Vulture and the experiments that proved without a shred of doubt that they (and other vultures, presumably) hunt by sight and not by small (like dogs, as was believed earlier) are lovingly described.
Later experiments by different scientists who proved these to be false are well told. As you would expect and like, the author describes why the first set of experiments were not designed properly to give the right results.
You learn a lot of stuff about these birds as you read – even facts that you don’t want to know. For example, vultures habitually defecate down their own legs ‘which helps cool them down’ because they cannot perspire, and also to sterlize their own legs – go figure!
Vulture stomach is so invulnerable – after all they digest putrified flesh crawling with microbes – that they can digest anthrax without ill effect! They eat botulism inflected flesh and digest them too. Most remarkable, they can eat flesh infected with hantavirus (which humans can destroy only by a toxic chemical detergent or by heating it to 115 degrees) with no apparent ill effect. And the hantavirus is not expelled in the faeces! It just ‘disappears’ or digested by these remarkable birds.
After that, the chapter on Snowy Owl is a bit of a let down. Only in comparison. The only thing the author talks of is how nomadic they are by nature and why all the hypotheses about why they don’t stay in the same area is wrong.
Next we get to heavily quarrelsome hummingbirds with bullies that do ‘the dog in the manger’ thing, not eating because there is too much food in the feeders and not letting other birds eating either.
The hummingbird’s metabolism is truly amazing, as is its ability to shut down while it sleeps as to be close to death – heartbeat slowed down, metabolism almost grinding to a halt and its breath hard to detect – until it wakes up and zooms up again! And they are not cuddly!
He explains why penguins are not afraid of humans but are subject to fear (of known predators like the leopard seal).
The fascinating journey then takes us to Snowball the Cockatoo, who became an internet sensation because of his unique ability to sashay to any popular song! He proved it to skeptical scientists too, amazing them in the process.
The surprising conclusion reached is that the ability to ‘truly dance, ie, hold a rhythm consistent with the music playing is available only with three species of animals : the parakeet, the elephant and of course humans!
The chapter on hens, predictably (?) talks about pecking order. And it is amazing how quarrelsome chicken are until a pecking order is established. We learn that the chicken (like bulls) are triggered by the colour red and so a bleeding chicken will be pecked mercilessly by most other chicken in the coop! They have incredibly well defined colour vision, the author tells us. Actually on that point, bulls are colour blind the matador’s cape is traditionally red but the bull does not know that!
Next on this fascinating list is the nutcracker, which hoards pine seeds in summer (a la squirrels) so that they can not only survive but breed and feed the young during the coldest part of the year in the midst of snowstorms. But this article is more about how they remember the location of the buried seeds than about any other behaviour.
Next, he moves to magpies which were known to recognize themselves in the mirror. Apart from self awareness that is rare outside of humans (elephants, great apes are known to have this) they also seem to have a funeral (albeit casketless) for a dead magpie!
And as you read, you realize that this book is not only about birds. Each passage diverges into what it means for other species including humanity. For example the chapter on chicken talks about hierarchy in other animals. The chapter on altruistic cooperation of fairy-wrens – which on the face of it seems to fly in the face of The Selfish Gene theory of Richard Dawkins – wanders into game theory and the warbler bird’s building of elaborate structures to woo mates diverges into a discussion of ‘what is art’. It adds weight to the story and adds multiple dimensions and is cleverly argued. I think it enhances the value of the narration of the book.
Most of us know that the albatross is the bird with the biggest wingspan in the world but were not aware of how long and how far they routinely fly. We are told that a gray headed albatross circled the entire Southern Ocean, including Antarctica in forty two days! They spend 95% of their time flying above an open ocean! (They can sleep while flying). In addition they have a single mate for life. This opens the door about marital fidelity and divorce rates for discussion.
What an exciting book to read. It is like sitting by a fireside on a winter evening, with hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows in hand, listening to a bird lover and naturalist sharing the highlights of career with you. An intimate and memorable conversation.
Had a lot of fun reading this one.
8/10
— Krishna