10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

Two epigraphs open Bernd Heinrich’s White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Swallows, each so redolent of his work as a whole, not just this new book, that they deserve to be quoted, even in a mere review, in full. Here’s the question in this book: Tree swallows build their nests in tree cavities or manmade boxes.

Eggs 131

Eggs Emotional Bats 2014 131

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Producing a book about birds and nesting is a dangerous business. 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. Some people love books like that. And of eggs and nests and birds on nests.

Eggs 263

Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

The opening beautifully encapsulates the essence of the book. The book, like the opening scene, is a deft combination of her personal observations of birds most of us rarely see, in a wild place very few people have visited, and of the natural histories of these birds. Do I need to say anything more? And, this was badly needed.

Fox 100

Fox Albatross Geese Bald Eagle 100