This manual provides comprehensive information for the Bird Sense book, authored by Tim Birkhead and published by Walker Books. This work delves into the fascinating world of avian perception, exploring how birds interpret their environment through a variety of senses including vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and even their ability to detect magnetic fields and rain. The book offers a unique perspective on bird behavior, grounded in a lifetime of scientific study and observation, and aims to illuminate the often underestimated aspects of what goes on within a bird's mind. It presents a comparative analysis of bird senses to human senses and highlights groundbreaking research approaches that challenge existing frameworks for studying avian life.
The purpose of this manual is to serve as a detailed guide to the content and context of "Bird Sense." It covers key topics such as the intricacies of bird vision, the nuances of avian hearing, and the role of smell and taste in their daily lives. The manual details how these sensory inputs shape bird behavior, offering insights into complex actions like singing and improvisation, and providing examples from studies on swifts, kiwis, and nightingales. Intended for informational and educational use, this manual is designed to assist readers in understanding the depth and breadth of knowledge presented in the book, highlighting its unique contribution as the first popular exploration of bird senses and their profound impact on avian existence.
What is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? And what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, and how does its brain improvise?
Bird Sense addresses questions like these and many more, by describing the senses of birds that enable them to interpret their environment and to interact with each other. Our affinity for birds is often said to be the result of shared senses--vision and hearing--but how exactly do their senses compare with our own? And what about a bird's sense of taste, or smell, or touch, or the ability to detect the earth's magnetic field? Or the extraordinary ability of desert birds to detect rain hundreds of kilometres away--how do they do it?
Bird Sense is based on a conviction that we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird's head. Our understanding of bird behaviour is simultaneously informed and constrained by the way we watch and study them. By drawing attention to the way these frameworks both facilitate and inhibit discovery, Birkhead identifies ways we can escape from them to explore new horizons in bird behaviour.
There has never been a popular book about the senses of birds. No one has previously looked at how birds interpret the world or the way the behaviour of birds is shaped by all their senses. A lifetime spent studying birds has provided Tim Birkhead with a wealth of observation and a unique understanding of birds and their behaviour that is firmly grounded in science.
Author: Birkhead, Tim
Publisher: Walker Books
Illustration: N
Language: ENG
Title: Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird
Pages: 00288 (Encrypted EPUB)
On Sale: 2012-04-24
SKU-13/ISBN: 9780802779663
Category: Science : Life Sciences - Zoology - General
What is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? And what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, and how does its brain improvise?
Bird Sense addresses questions like these and many more, by describing the senses of birds that enable them to interpret their environment and to interact with each other. Our affinity for birds is often said to be the result of shared senses--vision and hearing--but how exactly do their senses compare with our own? And what about a bird's sense of taste, or smell, or touch, or the ability to detect the earth's magnetic field? Or the extraordinary ability of desert birds to detect rain hundreds of kilometres away--how do they do it?
Bird Sense is based on a conviction that we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird's head. Our understanding of bird behaviour is simultaneously informed and constrained by the way we watch and study them. By drawing attention to the way these frameworks both facilitate and inhibit discovery, Birkhead identifies ways we can escape from them to explore new horizons in bird behaviour.
There has never been a popular book about the senses of birds. No one has previously looked at how birds interpret the world or the way the behaviour of birds is shaped by all their senses. A lifetime spent studying birds has provided Tim Birkhead with a wealth of observation and a unique understanding of birds and their behaviour that is firmly grounded in science.
Author: Birkhead, Tim
Publisher: Walker Books
Illustration: N
Language: ENG
Title: Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird
Pages: 00288 (Encrypted EPUB)
On Sale: 2012-04-24
SKU-13/ISBN: 9780802779663
Category: Science : Life Sciences - Zoology - General
