Jim Robbins, 'The Wonder of Birds' (2017)

Jim Robbins, The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017.

This is a fun, interesting and thought-provoking read. You can catch bits and pieces of similar thoughts and developments related to birds in news outlets and specialized journals, but it's helpful to have a bunch of them concentrated and reviewed in one place. 

I knew from previous reading that crows are smart, but there's always more to ponder. For instance: "It depends on how you define it, but the most intelligent corvid could be the New Caledonian crow, which is also in the running for the smartest animal on the planet." (page 155). It's funny, because a few days after reading the section on crows, while I was at a red traffic light, I looked over and saw a crow in the median, holding with one foot half a muffin, still partially wrapped in paper; while with the other foot, said crow pushed the paper off, so as to get at the delectable morsel inside. Groovy, man! All before the next green light. 

In any case, Robbins gets into migrations (what do they mean? How do they work? How is human activity disrupting patterns and habitat?); ideas like "emergence" and "murmurations" (mass avian spiral patterns) and neurogenesis (regeneration of thinking bits), theory of mind (being able to suss out other creatures' desires, &c.), chronesthesia (mental projection through space and time) and panpsychism; and sudden species collapse (such as of the passenger pigeon). 

The Wonder of Birds contains a lot of big ideas, and many specific examples of bird types and behavior, plus much about the positive impact of birds biologically and culturally.

Only in his consideration of cities / urban areas does Robbins step into weirdville: Tesla and pigeons, social work with eagles and other bizarro tales. 

I think that if Robbins has a blind spot, it's in "pigeonholing" cities, reducing them to one imagined uniform place where people are so "hyper-focused" that they barely realize the presence of birds, &c.  

Because there are many varieties of urban spaces, depending on geography, population size and density, planning, presence of nature preserves, cultural attitudes, historical factors and everything in between. One thing I can assure him: I've never been to a single city anywhere in the world that only contains pigeons.

Other than this urban quibble, I'm good with The Wonder of Birds; certainly I'm an advocate for the book and for birds and sustainable ecosystems. Essential to the future, given the outlook: "Temperatures and ocean levels, already on the rise, will increase further as the climate changes . . . more, and more immense, hurricanes and other storms, withering drought, punishing floods, and destructive winds." (page [297]).

And don't forget the hummingbirds! From what I've seen, they're very competitive, and I can often  pick one out in a tree, placed for optimum interception of other hummingbirds, sometimes chirping out a sort of tiny, fast Morse Code. 

Today's Rune: Movement. 

"That's Like Hypnotizing Chickens"

"In North America alone there are 10 billion chickens, compared to 4 billion wild birds." Jim Robbins, The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017, page 81.

In the USA: "Until the 1940s, chickens were raised primarily for their eggs. Chickens themselves assumed a starring role in the American diet during World War II because chicken, unlike beef and pork, wasn't rationed . . . The chicken [now, as of this post] is the most industrialized animal in the history of the world." Ibid. page 83.

"Chickens can solve problems and display an ability to think about the future." They also have a sense of object permanence (when they see something go out of line of sight, said thing does not go out of mind -- they remember). Ibid., page 88.  

Interested people are attempting to save enough wild chickens to prevent the collapse of all but genetically stunted industrialized populations. "Experts liken the loss of these genes for survival to the destruction of a library without knowing what's in it. That's why the Livestock Conservancy searches out genetic diversity in chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese before these local breeds blink out, and it encourages farmers to raise those birds." Ibid., page 91. 

"Oh love love love
That's like hypnotizing chickens
Well I am just a modern guy
Of course I've had it in the ear before
'Cause of a lust for life!"

"Lust for Life" (1977) Iggy Pop and David Bowie

Images: 

Saul bij de heks van Endor / Saul and the Witch of Endor by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (1525/1526), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Close-up by Erik Donald France, June 2017.

In the field, Brugge / Bruges, Belgium, EDF, June 2017.

Gustav Klimt, Gartenweg mit Hühnern / Garden Path with Chickens (1916). Klimt died during the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918; the original of this World War One era painting was destroyed near the end of World War Two, in 1945.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.