The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
For decades, people have written off birds as largely witless, driven solely by instinct, and their brains as primitive, capable of only the simplest mental processes. But it is not so. In recent years, science has discovered that birds are much, much more intelligent than we ever supposed. Ravens, crows, jays, even hummingbirds do things that are just plain smart—and funny and sneaky and deceitful. They craft and use tools, sing to one another in regional accents, make complex navigational decisions without asking for directions, remember where they put things using intricate geometrical concepts, understand the mental state of another individual, josh around with windshield wipers, and use rolling car tires to crack walnuts, all sorts of intelligent behavior that we can see in evidence in our own backyards, at our birdfeeders, in parks, city streets, and country skies, and all with a packet of brain so tiny it would fit inside a walnut.
Fastest Things on Wings by Terry Masear
Before he collided with a limousine, Gabriel, an Anna’s hummingbird with a head and throat cloaked in iridescent magenta feathers, could spiral 130 feet in the air, dive 60 miles per hour in a courtship display, hover, and fly backward. When he arrived in rehab caked in road grime, he was so badly injured that he could barely perch. But Terry Masear, one of the busiest hummingbird rehabbers in the country, was determined to save this damaged bird, who seemed oddly familiar. During the four months that Terry worked with Gabriel, she took in 160 hummingbirds, from a miniature nestling rescued by a bulldog and a fledgling trapped inside a skydiving wind tunnel at Universal CityWalk, to Pepper, a female Anna’s injured on a film set. In their time together, Pepper and Gabriel form a special bond and, together, with Terry’s help, learn to fly again. Woven around Gabriel’s and Pepper’s stories are those of other colorful birds in this personal narrative filled with the science and magic surrounding these fascinating creatures.
Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
In 2016, racism against Asians became more blatant. I needed to find calm and resilience. I turned to the refuge I found as a child: nature, a place of wonderment and the freedom that comes with play and imagination…I began a journal on birds. I recorded dramas happening in my yard in cartoon-like sketches. Each observation took me deeper into questions about what birds must do to survive. Birds also happen to be hilarious much of the time…
What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman
WHAT AN OWL KNOWS explores what we’ve learned in the past decade or two about owls , those enigmatic, fascinating, and elusive birds. It looks at how owls communicate— in much more complicated ways than we ever imagined, how they court, mate, raise their young, whether they act from instinct alone or from intelligence and learning, how they relate to one another—and to us. And it explores the people obsessed with these magnificent birds, from biologists and conservationists who have devoted their lives to owls, to citizen scientists like Steve Hiro, a retired heart surgeon who is now one of the foremost experts on the breeding biology of Northern Pygmy Owls and Marjon Savelsberg, a Dutch musician, classically trained, who has focused her skilled ear on the world of owl vocalizations.
Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today. From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover them yourself.
Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding recounts Cooper’s journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.