The Wisdom of Birds

"This could have been called The Wonder of Birds . The author, Tim Birkhead , is a brilliant academic, a professor at Sheffield University where he teaches animal behavioural and the history of science, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is exceptionally gifted at conveying often complex scientific ideas very elegantly, succinctly and excitingly. In a very busy life, writing this book took him over five years. So it’s been a long genesis, but he wanted to write about how scientists through history have found things out about birds, and that involved a lot of research in books and other historical sources. I have felt great curiosity about how the world works from childhood and I think all children are natural scientists. Really, a lot of science is a form of highly focused play, a way of looking at the world which, rather than diminishing it, makes it seem more wonderful. Tim had the great notion of looking at various different aspects of bird biology – instinct, intelligence, song, breeding, migration and so on – through the lens of the historical development of the subject. He made it into such an interesting read. It’s called The Wisdom of Birds as a nod to the great 17th century naturalist John Ray, who wrote a book called The Wisdom of God . If you asked ornithologists who the greatest studiers of birds are, they would suggest many people but not necessarily John Ray. He was remarkable. His way of studying birds was really spot on. He really did go and look, rather than just repeat the old myths. Tim has taken this history for a major theme of his own, cleverly relating it to how modern biologists study birds. He has spent a huge amount of time looking at old books in libraries in many parts of the world. He found that a lot of people who kept caged birds through the ages developed an impressive knowledge of their biology. A major research interest of Tim’s is the biology of sperm. If you need to know anything about sperm, then Tim’s your man. He found out that bird keepers actually knew a lot of things and then the knowledge was lost. Now he’s dug up a lot of examples of these bird keepers and others who really knew about their birds. Well, that birds are unfaithful. It used to be thought that almost all birds were monogamous, but you only have to watch drake mallards chasing around in gangs and it’s upsetting to see. They gang rape the female and the females may even drown and so on. It’s a nasty world, mallard sex. And then think of a cock pheasant strutting around the field with a harem… Yes, many birds are clearly promiscuous. Tim, with his interest in sperm and especially promiscuity in birds, has unearthed a lot of the biology of how birds cheat, if you like. It’s all Darwinian selection and they try to maximise their chances. Sometimes, though, the advantage is to remain loyal. There’s a core of birds that is remarkably faithful. Swans and geese, for instance, and parrots too. If you watch macaws, as I’ve been fortunate to do in tropical America, you see they are almost never apart. Mostly within touching distance, including in flight. It’s wonderful. But equally wonderful are all the dramas and strategies that promiscuous birds indulge in to maximise their potential. Take that common little soberly plumaged garden bird the dunnock, for instance, they have such a racy sex life – each sex often with multiple partners. And a male will watch a rival male copulating with a female, and then when he goes the first male will zoom in and peck at the female’s cloaca to force her to eject the competitor’s sperm and then he inserts his own! It’s all about… Yes."