Tim Birkhead

The life, death and afterlife of one of the true icons of extinction, the Great Auk The great auk was a flightless, goose-sized bird superbly adapted for life at sea. Fat, flush with feathers and easy to capture, the birds were in trouble whenever sailors visited their once-remote breeding colonies. Places like Funk Island, off north-east Newfoundland, became scenes of unimaginable slaughter, with birds killed in their millions. By 1800 the auks of Funk Island were gone. A scramble by private collectors for specimens of the final few birds then began, a bloody, unthinking destruction of one of the world’s most extraordinary species. But their extinction in 1844 wasn’t the end of the great auk story, as the bird went on to have a remarkable afterlife; skins, eggs and skeletons became the focus for dozens of collectors in a story of pathological craving and unscrupulous dealings that goes on to this day. In a book rich with insight and packed with tales of birds and of people, Tim Birkhead reveals previously unimagined aspects of the bird’s life before humanity, its death on the killing shores of the North Atlantic, and the unrelenting subsequent quest for its remains. The great auk remains a symbol of human folly and the necessity of conservation. This book tells its story.

The life, death and afterlife of one of the true icons of extinction, the Great AukThe great auk was a flightless, goose-sized bird superbly adapted for life at sea. Fat, flush with feathers and easy to capture, the birds were in trouble whenever sailors visited their once-remote breeding colonies. Places like Funk Island, off north-east Newfoundland, became scenes of unimaginable slaughter, with birds killed in their millions. By 1800 the auks of Funk Island were gone. A scramble by private collectors for specimens of the final few birds then began, a bloody, unthinking destruction of one of the world’s most extraordinary species.But their extinction in 1844 wasn’t the end of the great auk story, as the bird went on to have a remarkable afterlife; skins, eggs and skeletons became the focus for dozens of collectors in a story of pathological craving and unscrupulous dealings that goes on to this day.In a book rich with insight and packed with tales of birds and of people, Tim Birkhead reveals previously unimagined aspects of the bird’s life before humanity, its death on the killing shores of the North Atlantic, and the unrelenting subsequent quest for its remains.The great auk remains a symbol of human folly and the necessity of conservation. This book tells its story.

'This beautiful book is one to treasure forever' David Walliams, comedian and children's authorWINNER of The Margaret Mallett Award for Children's Non-Fiction 2022Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly? Or to live high in the tree tops? Or perhaps you’ve wondered what birds do when no one is looking? Birds have some of the most extraordinary – and peculiar – behaviours on the planet. Ravens love PLAYING games. In winter, they sledge down snow-covered rooftops on their bellies, getting faster and faster. Partridges are SNEAKY and know just how to trick hungry foxes. And honeyguides are HELPFUL. They help humans to find the sweetest treat in the forest – honey. These are just some of the incredible stories you’ll read in this book. With fascinating factual detail and playful storytelling from ornithologist Tim Birkhead and vibrant, personality-filled illustrations from Cat Rayner, this book captures what it’s really like to be a bird.

'Birkhead has combined ingenuity and perseverance to produce an evocative portrait of a great pioneer in the scientific study of birds' Literary ReviewFrancis Willughby lived and thrived in the midst of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Along with his Cambridge tutor John Ray, Willughby was determined to overhaul the whole of natural history and impose order on its complexity. It was exhilarating, exacting and exhausting work. Yet before Willughby and Ray could complete their monumental encyclopaedia of birds, Ornithology, Willughby died. In the centuries since, Ray’s reputation has grown, obscuring that of his collaborator. Now, for the first time, Willughby’s own story and genius are given the attention they deserve.Tim Birkhead celebrates how Willughby’s endeavours set a standard for the way birds and natural history should be studied. Rich with glorious detail, The Wonderful Mr Willughby is a fascinating insight into a thrilling period of scientific history and a lively biography of a man who lived at its heart.

Wie es ist ein Vogel zu sein – ein bahnbrechender Blick auf die Sinneswelt der Vögel Das Buch des britischen Ornithologen Tim Birkhead hat die englische Leserwelt im Sturm erobert –und begeistert nun auch das deutschsprachige Publikum. Fliegen wie ein Vogel – das ist für viele Menschen ein Traum. Doch nur wenige von uns sind sich der anderen Fähigkeiten und Sinnesleistungen bewusst, die das Vogelsein zu einer großartigen und ganz besonderen Erfahrung machen. Wie ist es, ein Flamingo zu sein, der den unsichtbaren Regen fühlt, welcher Hunderte von Kilometern entfernt niedergeht? Oder ein Kiwi, der in einer stockfinsteren neuseeländischen Nacht durch das feuchte Unterholz stapft? Was empfindet ein Tölpel, der nach langer winterlicher Trennung seinen Partner wiedertrifft? Und wie gelingt es Zugvögeln, das Erdmagnetfeld wahrzunehmen? Die Sinne der Vögel zeichnet historisch nach, wie unser Wissen über Vögel vor allem durch technische Fortschritte im Lauf der letzten 50 Jahre gewachsen ist. Das Buch erzählt faszinierende Geschichten darüber, wie Vögel ihre Sinne – Gesichts-, Hör-, Geruchs-, Geschmacks-, Tast- und Magnetsinn – gebrauchen, um ihre Umwelt zu interpretieren und miteinander zu interagieren. Moderne Testverfahren haben frühere Überzeugungen als falsch entlarvt, beispielsweise den Glauben, dass Vögel einen schlecht entwickelten Geruchssinn haben. Dennoch unterschätzen wir noch immer, was im Kopf eines Vogels vor sich geht – vor allem deshalb, weil die Art und Weise, wie wir sie beobachten und studieren, unser Verständnis gleichzeitig voranbringt und einschränkt. Indem dieses Buch deutlich macht, wie unsere eigenen Sinne neue Erkenntnisse sowohl fördern als auch hemmen, zeigt es Wege auf, das Verhalten von Vögeln besser zu verstehen.Nie zuvor hat ein populäres Sachbuch so klar dar gelegt, wie grundlegend das Verhalten von Vögeln von ihren Sinnen geprägt wird. Dank seiner lebenslangen wissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung mit diesen Tieren verfügt Tim Birkhead über einen umfangreichen Schatz an Beobachtungen, der ihm erlaubt, Vögel und ihr Verhalten zu deuten und zu verstehen. Niemand, der dieses faszinierende und wunderbar illustrierte Buch liest, wird davon unberührt bleiben.

'I think that, if required on pain of death to name instantly the most perfect thing in the universe, I should risk my fate on a bird's egg' Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1862How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shape they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of an eggshell created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first – the blunt end or the pointy end?These are just some of the questions A Bird’s Egg answers, as the journey of a bird’s egg from creation and fertilisation to its eventual hatching is examined, with current scientific knowledge placed within an historical context. Beginning with an examination of the stunning eggs of the guillemot, each of which is so variable in pattern and colour that no two are ever the same, acclaimed ornithologist Tim Birkhead then looks at the eggs of hens, cuckoos and many other birds, revealing weird and wonderful facts about these miracles of nature. Woven around and supporting these facts are extraordinary stories of the individuals who from as far back as Ancient Egypt have been fixated on the study and collection of eggs, not always to the benefit of their conservation.Firmly grounded in science and enriched by a wealth of observation drawn from a lifetime spent studying birds,A Bird’s Egg is an illuminating and engaging exploration of the science behind eggs and the history of man’s obsession with them.

Ten Thousand Birds provides a thoroughly engaging and authoritative history of modern ornithology, tracing how the study of birds has been shaped by a succession of visionary and often-controversial personalities, and by the unique social and scientific contexts in which these extraordinary individuals worked. This beautifully illustrated book opens in the middle of the nineteenth century when ornithology was a museum-based discipline focused almost exclusively on the anatomy, taxonomy, and classification of dead birds. It describes how in the early 1900s pioneering individuals such as Erwin Stresemann, Ernst Mayr, and Julian Huxley recognized the importance of studying live birds in the field, and how this shift thrust ornithology into the mainstream of the biological sciences. The book tells the stories of eccentrics like Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, a pathological liar who stole specimens from museums and quite likely murdered his wife, and describes the breathtaking insights and discoveries of ambitious and influential figures such as David Lack, Niko Tinbergen, Robert MacArthur, and others who through their studies of birds transformed entire fields of biology. Ten Thousand Birds brings this history vividly to life through the work and achievements of those who advanced the field. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and in-depth interviews, this fascinating book reveals how research on birds has contributed more to our understanding of animal biology than the study of just about any other group of organisms.

The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary. Though his experiments failed, they paved the way for others to succeed when it was recognised that the canary needed to be both a product of nature and nurture. This highly original narrative, of huge contemporary relevance, reveals how the obsession with turning the wild canary from green to red heralded the exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation.

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 birds' 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, it identifies ways we can escape from them to seek 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 their senses. A lifetime spent studying birds has provided Tim Birkhead with a wealth of observation and an understanding of birds and their behaviour that is firmly grounded in science.

Magpies are unmistakeable in their appearance, voice and extrovert, arrogant manner. While their persecution at the hands of gamekeepers over the last hundred years has made them wary and difficult to approach, a number of recent field studies, both in Europe and North America, have successfully revealed the intricacies of the magpie way of life. Two species of magpie feature in this book, the Black-billed Magpie, familiar to most Europeans, which occurs throughout much of the northern hemisphere, and the Yellow-billed Magpie, which is confined to California. Tim Birkhead has studied both species, and has produced a fascinating account of their ecology and behaviour. Many of the results from his ten-year study of magpies in northern England are published here for the first time. Particularly revealing however is his comparison of the two species and of their different races. Magpies occur in a wide range of habitats, including English farmland, the deserts of North America, the mountains of Saudi Arabia and the windswept plateaus of Tibet. As this book explains, magpies are able to exploit this diversity of habitats largely through their remarkably flexible social behaviour. The Magpies covers all aspects of their lives, including their marital relationships, food hoarding behaviour, longevity and survival, nesting behaviour, breeding success and their controversial relationship with man. The text is supported by numerous photographs, diagrams and tables, and superb illustrations by David Quinn. Illustrated by David Quinn

The story of the author's research expeditions in the Canadian Arctic, this book is for professional and amateur ornithologists, students in ecology and animal behaviour.The Arctic is one of the world's last great wildernesses: a place of outstanding beauty, history and extraordinary wildlife in which seabirds form an important component of a rich, marine environment. Like many other remote regions, it is under threat from human activities, but to protect it we need to understand it.That understanding can come only through scientific research and the central threat of this book is to examine how such research is actually done. It describes the business of conducting biological studies on seabirds in remote parts of eastern Canada. Several themes are engagingly interwoven: the sheer beauty of the Arctic environment, the intriguing biology of its wildlife, and the discovery and exploitation of enormous seabird colonies, including the destruction of the Great Auk.Tim Birkhead describes in personal detail the different facets of research and brings to life both the difficulties and the excitement of working in the Arctic. What is it like setting up a camp for four months on a remote and uninhabited island not far from the North Pole? How does it feel to commute daily by inflatable boat amidst icebergs to study-areas located on towering cliffs, set between ice-blue glaciers? What do you do when a Polar bear decides that you have invaded its Arctic home? Why are the seabird colonies in the high Arctic so enormous? What do we know about lifestyle of the extinct Great Auk? In 1992 Canada's legendary cod fishery was finally destroyed - what are the consequences of this for other wildlife?These are just a few of the questions dealt with in this book. Our future as a species depends upon science and the understanding it brings of the world we live in. The work of scientists often appears obscure, but in this book, Tim Birkhead has used his experience of seven summers in the Arctic to write an accessible and straightforward account of how research is actually done in the field.The text is enriched by David Quinn's illustrations, and by numerous photographs in both black and white, and colour.