One Wild Bird at a Time

Posted on 27 April 2017 by Bernd Heinrich

The acclaimed scientist s encounters with individual wild birds, yielding marvelous, mind altering Los Angeles Times insights and discoveries In his modern classics One Man s Owl and Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich has written memorably about his relationships with wild ravens and a great horned owl In One Wild Bird at a Time, Heinrich returns to his great love close, day to day observations of individual wild birds There are countless books on bird behavior, but Heinrich argues that some of the most amazing bird behaviors fall below the radar of what most birds do in aggregate Heinrich s passionate observations that superbly mix memoir and science New York Times Book Review lead to fascinating questions and sometimes startling discoveries A great crested flycatcher, while bringing food to the young in their nest, is attacked by the other flycatcher nearby Why A pair of Northern flickers hammering their nest hole into the side of Heinrich s cabin deliver the opportunity to observe the feeding competition between siblings, and to make a related discovery about nest cleaning One of a clutch of redstart warbler babies fledges out of the nest from twenty feet above the ground, and lands on the grass below It can t fly What will happen next Heinrich looks closely, with his trademark hands and knees science at its most engaging, delivering what can only be called psychological marvels of knowing Boston Globe An eminent biologist shares the joys of bird watching and how observing the anomalous behaviors of individual birds has guided his research Heinrich Emeritus, Biology Univ of Vermont The Homing Instinct Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration, 2014, etc smoothly describes how studying the daily lives of birds in their natural environments allows him to experience their world vicariously Now retired and living in a cabin in the Maine woods, he devotes himself to closely observing his avian neighbors, visitors, and vagrants, and keep ing daily records throughout spring, summer, fall, and winter Every year, he welcomes a pair of broad wing hawks who feast at a vernal pond populated by frogs, spring peepers, and salamanders while refurbishing their old nest Unusually, they provide a fern cover on the nest, which they update on a daily basis after their chicks hatch Heinrich also includes anecdotes from an earlier time when he still lived in Vermont Awakened one morning by the loud drumming of a male woodpecker on a nearby apple tree, the author wondered if perhaps he was seeking to attract a female Surprisingly, when a female was drawn to the sound, he stopped drumming and flew away The same behavior was repeated the following day The author s observations led him to conclude that the bird s drumming was not part of a mating ritual but rather a noisy advertisement of his nest building skills Vireos nesting near his cabin allowed him to observe how they deliberately reduced the number of eggs they were hatching to accommodate the reduced food supply after an unseasonal freeze Heinrich explains that bird watching has been an important part of his life since he was a boy on his family s farm When he was 6, they moved from Germany to Maine Finding familiar birds nesting immediately made this place our home, he writes An engaging memoir of the opportunities for doing scientific research without leaving one s own backyardKirkus Read One Wild Bird at a Time – kino-fada.fr If you are a back yard bird watcher who keeps a nature journal, you might well take inspiration from Bernd Heinrich He takes it a step further than most of us would, I suspect, because of his background as a biology professor For instance, I don t know how many people would be willing to thaw, count, and examine grouse scat in order to prove a theory The writing certainly reminded me that the author has an academic background It is not as stiff as a professional paper, but neither is it as co If you are a back yard bird watcher who keeps a nature journal, you might well take inspiration from Bernd Heinrich He takes it a step further than most of us would, I suspect, because of his background as a biology professor For instance, I don t know how many people would be willing to thaw, count, and examine grouse scat in order to prove a theory The writing certainly reminded me that the author has an academic background It is not as stiff as a professional paper, but neither is it as conversational as I would prefer for such a work Having said that, it is inspirational in the level of observation and effort that Heinrich was willing to put into his record A birder doesn t have to travel to the far flung places on the map in order to have a satisfactory birding life looking deep into the world just outside the window ...Bernd Heinrich is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont He writes as an academic, a biologist and a naturalist He thinks as a scientist thinks, and his experiments and studies on birds demonstrate this Statistics are duly recorded and logically analyzed I would not recommend the book to everyone, yet I like the scientific approach and I like the man s curiosity He observes individual species of birds and poses interesting questions Theyou know ab Bernd Heinrich is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the Univer...Impressive Precise and accurate detailing for minutia through counted observations of numerous species of birds within the author s Maine forest He lives forest surrounded year round in a log wood fired cottage This is trials, testing, physical scat or individual count charting in a specific and scientific method But it also includes his delight, or his surprise, or his incredulous disbelief on occasion He...An outstanding book that let me glimpse into the realm of these fantastic feathered beings around us Wow The book left me groping for a chance to climb that tree, see that nest, and fall through the branches, seeing woodpeckers, crows, warblers, and who knows what This book gave me a completely new view on the behaviors of these wild birds Even though I have not observed many of them I bird west coast , it gave me so much new information about them in a fabulous way Heinrich writes with so An outstanding book that let me glimpse into the realm of these fantastic feathered beings around us Wow The book left me groping for a chance to climb that tree, see that nest, and fall through the branches, seeing woodpeckers, crows, warblers, and who knows what This book gave me a completely new view on the behaviors of these wild birds Even though I have not observed many of them I bird west coast , it gave me so much new information about them in a fabulous way Heinrich writes with so much enthusiasm, which makes his novels so inspiring I think a few of the chapters felt a little incomplete chapters 6, 8, 16 , but most of them were filled with intriguing knowledge I felt sympathy and compassion during some chapters, but the overall effect of the book made me want to jump outside, grab my binoculars, and tromp through the woods I love birdwatching, as it makes me learn new concepts and ide...Reminds me of The Armchair Birder Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds butadventurous Heinrich, a professional naturalist and good scientist, gets out of the chair and chases around the Maine woods after the birds He does his own field work, reading much less than Yow did His writing voice is academic, to me I had trouble focusing instead of putting the book down for breaks, and I m sure I m going to forget most of what I just read pretty quickly but that s apparently jus Reminds me of The Armchair Birder Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds butadventurous Heinrich, a professional naturalist and good scientist, gets out of the chair and chases around the Maine woods after the birds He does his own field work, reading much less than Yow did His writing voice is academic, to me I had trouble focusing instead of putting the book down for breaks, and I m sure I m going to forget most of ...Three and a half stars Some chapters were better than others, but on the whole I enjoyed Heinrich s tales of his bird studies Each chapter focuses on a particular sort of bird and on a certain aspect of that bird s behavior There is a lot about nesting and raising babies, flock behavior, feeding, territoriality, etc Heinrich s observations are spectacularly okay, sometimes hilariously specific He counts daily bird poops in nests, tail bobs per minute, caterpillars carried per feeding trip Three and a half stars Some chapters were better than others, but on the whole I enjoyed Heinrich s tales of his bird studies Each chapter focuses on a particular sort of bird and on a certain aspect of that bird s behavior There is a lot about nesting and raising babies, flock behavior, feeding, territoriality, etc Heinrich s observations are spectacularly okay, sometimes hilariously specific He counts daily bird poops in nests, tail bobs per minute, caterpillars carried per feeding trip, grams of fat under a bird s skin during its post mortem inspection and number of pecks causing the death that resulted in a post mortem...Going through the large audio book collection at the mid Manhattan library, which seemed to mostly consist of schlocky thrillers and self help books, I was surprised to come upon this quiet work of ornithology I thought it might make a refreshing change of pace for my audio listening, my last book having been The Devil in the White Cit...A collection of wonderful observant essays about individual birds.i m genuinely surprised no one ran interference at some point if i ever become someone who pokes around birds on their nests or collects scat and sifts through it, please hold an intervention.This one was such a perfect fit for me, in my fledgling birding life and I was lucky to find it as an Audible Daily Deal.Each of these chapters, most take place at the author s remote Maine cabin, are portrait s of a particular bird or a group of birds The first one involves a family of northern flickers, that have taken up residenc...

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27 April 2017

Bernd Heinrich