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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 207
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Vagrancy in Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

It also summarizes the vagrancy status of every bird family in the whole wide world, which makes it fun to read as well as superbly educational. The Family Accounts are the fun part of the book. The Family Accounts are also a deeply informational, documented source of information for researchers.

Birds 256
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Birding By Impression: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

GISS—general impression, size, shape—is intuitive, the result of an unconscious cognitive process derived from experience in the field. I would be more apt to accept the science of BBI if the science of hemispheric brain functions was not subject to so much misconceptions and simplification.*

Birds 169
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Birding for the Curious: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Birding is discussed as a process that involves finding birds, viewing and hearing birds, taking notes and sketching birds, thinking about habitat and migration, and then, identifying birds. It is process that can be as simple or as complex as you wish, and I think this is where Birding for the Curious is unique.

Birds 263
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National Audubon Society Birds of North America: A Guide Review

10,000 Birds

The photographs are from VIREO, the ornithological image collection associated with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, which licenses bird photographs to many guides and reference books. Using the icons to locate specific bird families takes a little getting used to, but if you do it often it works well as a finding tool.

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What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Jennifer Ackerman points out in the introduction to What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds , that we don’t know much, but that very soon we may know a lot more. What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds is a joyous, fascinating read.

Owls 203
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Bird Talk: An Exploration of Avian Communication–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Bird communication is a complex and evolving science. Ballantine and Hyman explore how birds communicate and summarize studies on how that communication functions in diverse bird families all over the world. Bird communication is much broader than just vocalization, something I tend to forget.