The Thing with Feathers

In the introduction, Strycker sums up what the book is about. “This book may be about the bird world, but it's also about the human world. Birds can behave in curious, flashy, and startling ways, but they seek the same basic things we do: foods, shelter, territory, safety, companionship, a legacy.”

Each chapter examines a bird behavior (the ability of Clark's Nutcrackers to create mental maps, the monogamy of the albatross), and often relates this trait to human behaviors. While some may think this smacks of anthropomorphism, Strycker does an excellent job in examining the latest in ornithology and human neurology in order to ask whether some of our own behavior might be biological in origin.

The study of birds will be fascinating to any birder, and the glimpse at human nature will interest any student of humanity.

The Thing with Feathers is a book of stories about birds that you never knew and never expected, stories about the abilities of vultures and starlings and snowy owls and hummingbirds and penguins and parrots and nutcrackers and magpies and bowerbirds and fairy helpers and albatrosses, and all the surprising things they can do. If you want to know more about birds, you probably want to add this book to your list.