“Bird Sense: What It’s Like to be a Bird” by Tim Birkhead is the book I have been waiting for since I was seven years old.
I am 42 now. So I only had to wait 35 years to get my question answered.
Bonus.
Even after reading “Bird Sense”, however, it is still challenging to imagine me-as-bird. This is because, after reading “Bird Sense”, birds seem less like birds and more like superheroes to me.
They have a magnetic sense – this is how they can figure out how to get from point A to point Z when they’ve never been to Z before. And they can get back to A again too. I can’t even get to point B without a GPS system and a detailed map.
They also see in ultraviolet light. So those drab lady birds aren’t quite so drab if you are a dude bird. Oh, and what they see out of their left and right eyes is quite different than what we see out of ours. In birds, one eye sees up close. The other eye sees far away. And both eyes see with 20/20 accuracy.
They also have hearing, taste, touch, emotion and probably lots more superpowers we don’t even know about yet.
But perhaps the most amazing superpower birds have is the ability, as Birkhead says, to make us “fall in love with birds.”
Yup. That they surely do. 🙂
Learn more about “Bird Sense” and author Tim Birkhead: http://bird-sense.com/the-book/
I’ve got to get that book! I didn’t know one eye sees up close an one far away, amazing!!
OMG you do – It is so remarkable! I seriously look at Pearl now and think “I have a tiny dinosaur/superhero sitting right there on his perch in my house!” 🙂
Guess I’m going shopping this weekend haha!!
Heck yah! And I just finished another fantastic one – “The Parrot’s Lament” – all about animal stories (if precious few are actually about birds – but still totally worth reading!)
Making my list and checking it twice, going to the bookstore to fill my vice!!
Haha – you sound like me! 🙂
Next, I just how to figure out how to read 20 at a time so I can catch up!!!