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Into the Nest: A Book Review in the Time of Nesting

10,000 Birds

Second, reading about birds courting and parenting brings out the tendency to identify, which leads directly to anthropomorphism, the tendency to assign birds human emotions and thoughts. Think of birds too much as humans and you lose the specialness that makes them birds. Some people love books like that. Yellow Warbler fledgling.

Eggs 263
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The Birds of Trinidad and Tobago: Two Guides, One Book Review

10,000 Birds

It is organized taxonomically, with families identified by first scientific and then popular name. Each family section starts with a brief description of the birds within that family, their common physical and behavioral traits, and range of habitat. Even during the breeding season the birds appear to be quite unwary of humans.

Trinidad 201
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What It’s Like to Be a Bird: A Review of the New Sibley Book

10,000 Birds

The longer Introduction lists and briefly summarizes topics covered in the Portfolio (evolution feathers, coloration, variation, senses, movement, physiology, migration, food and foraging, survival, social behavior, birds and humans, threats). Do they have families too and do they take care of them? How are they different?

2020 264
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15 Australian Birds (Episode 4)

10,000 Birds

Gisela Kaplan has written a book about the species, and how they seem unperturbed by humans: “It’s one of their most successful defense strategies. The Black-faced Monarch is a relative in the same bird family, the Monarchidae. Between 1991 and 2001, 143 bird strikes involving Masked Lapwings were reported to the ATSB.

Birds 236
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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

Not, as Linneaus thought, an ostrich, nor even, as later scientists concluded, a distant cousin of pigeons deserving of family rank, it was an honest-to-goodness pigeon, deeply embedded within the family Columbidae. The Dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) — that towering icon of modern anthropogenic extinctions — was a pigeon.

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A Question of Migration

10,000 Birds

Way back when I started what turned out to be my thesis research (on humans), it became important for me to learn about bird migration. I was involved in the study of human movement and navigation on land, and there was a lot of research coming out about bird navigation. Itcher birds, migratory members of the tern family.

Research 197
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The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors – A Book Review

10,000 Birds

I haven’t done any surveys, but I would bet my binoculars that images and stories of hawks attract more attention and adoration from birders and the average person on the street than any other bird family. Families do not hike up mountains to sit all day on pointy rocks to watch woodpeckers. Those cameras are aimed at hawks.