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How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals about Their Origin, Lives, and Diversity: A Book Review by a Non-Science Person

10,000 Birds

Doug Futuyma believes in science and in the scientific basis of evolution. How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals about Their Origin, Lives, and Diversity by Douglas J. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a very different kind of book than popular books about bird behavior, which rely on story as much as science.

Science 214
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The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent focuses on this last question, but you might find yourself fascinated by the first two, which come early in the book but linger on in the imagination as author Danielle J. Do birds use odors and a sense of smell to communicate with each other? But Danielle Whittaker has.

Science 220
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The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg

10,000 Birds

Tim Birkhead, a respected ornithologist with years of research under his belt, doesn’t quite achieve perfection with this book on the totality of that strange entity, the bird’s egg, but he makes a valiant effort of it and comes away with a very interesting book indeed.

Eggs 100
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Bird Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Avian Lives–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

He has written and co-written over 400 scientific papers on brood parasitism, Common Cuckoos, egg rejection and other nesting behaviors, and fairy wren learning in addition to T he Book of Eggs: A Life-Size Guide to the Eggs of Six Hundred of the World’s Bird Species (Univ. Mark Hauber is currently (just appointed!)

Chicago 178
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Sand Trap: Netting Red Knots for Science

10,000 Birds

One scientists posits that harvesting of horseshoe crabs (their eggs are a preferred Red Knot food source) at a crucial refueling stop on the birds’ migration could be part of the problem. The study aims to track the Red Knots (like the ones above photographed by Clare K.)

Science 163
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The return of the Old Man

10,000 Birds

Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills of the World states that “disturbance by local people, tourists, and egg and zoo collectors has similarly reduced the colonies, and more protection is vital”. They are early nesters, but I was unable to tell whether any pairs already had eggs, though I suspected that some might have done.

Morocco 223
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Teaching Ornithology in High Schools

10,000 Birds

Manker’s thesis is that ornithology is an excellent gateway to students becoming science majors in college and, more broadly and longer-term, conservation-minded citizens. Of course, there was conventional classroom time spent on topics such as mechanics of flight, metabolism, digestion, nest building, egg production, and so forth.

2018 264