Summary of Jennifer Ackerman's The Bird Way

Everest Media

• Publisher: Everest Media LLC
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781669375005
• Topic: Sciences biologiques
• Subtopic: Zoologie

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Birds are the great communicators of the animal world. They speak with their voices, their bodies, and their feathers. They may not have the facial musculature we primates use to express ourselves, but they can powerfully communicate their inner states with head and body movements.#2 The quelea bird's facial plumage is extremely variable, and scientists have struggled to find any correlation between fitness and color. However, the birds know who they are, and they know who is trustworthy, so they can stop harassing one another and get down to the business of nest building.#3 The dawn chorus is a baffling behavior that occurs in the dark hours before dawn, when many birds sing at the same time. It may be because cool temperatures, calm air, and less ambient noise from insects allow their songs to travel farther.#4 bird songs and calls range from the odd comical cluck and rattle of the willow ptarmigan to the elfin chucklings of Leach's storm petrels. They are a tapestry of vocal behaviors that helps birds coexist and become the wildly successful and diverse group they are.

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

birds are the great communicators of the animal world. They speak with their voices, their bodies, and their feathers. They may not have the facial musculature we primates use to express ourselves, but they can powerfully communicate their inner states with head and body movements.

#2

The quelea bird’s facial plumage is extremely variable, and scientists have struggled to find any correlation between fitness and color. However, the birds know who they are, and they know who is trustworthy, so they can stop harassing one another and get down to the business of nest building.

#3

The dawn chorus is a baffling behavior that occurs in the dark hours before dawn, when many birds sing at the same time. It may be because cool temperatures, calm air, and less ambient noise from insects allow their songs to travel farther.

#4

bird songs and calls range from the odd comical cluck and rattle of the willow ptarmigan to the elfin chucklings of Leach’s storm petrels. They are a tapestry of vocal behaviors that helps birds coexist and become the wildly successful and diverse group they are.

#5

The voice box of birds is a structure called a syrinx, which is buried deep in a bird’s chest cavity. Sound emerges when the membranes of the syrinx vibrate, shifting the flow of air through the organ.

#6

Birds cry like children, grunt like pigs, meow like cats, and sing like divas. They speak in dialects and carol in pairs and choruses. They glean information from calls and songs, and they use sound in ingenious ways to share information, negotiate boundaries, and influence one another’s behavior.

#7

The whipbird is a small bird that lives in Australia’s rainforest and coexists with the bell miner by keeping a low profile. It has a female-biased sex ratio, and uses its unique call to defend its position in a partnership with the male.

#8

The timing of human chat is extremely precise. The duets of canebrake wrens, which are songs sung by male and female canebrake wrens in Costa Rica, are extremely precise.

#9

The canebrake wrens are an example of how the brain can synch up with another person’s brain to create a duet. Scientists have found that when two birds sing these sorts of precisely coordinated duets, their brains actually sync.

#10

The study showed that female song was common in the ancestors of most songbird species, and that it was used for similar purposes as male songs. However, it has been lost in most songbird species due to the fact that resident birds have to defend their territory all year long, while migrant birds only have to do so during the breeding season.

#11

The Australian National Botanic Gardens is a beautiful place, but it also hosts many dangerous animals and birds. The gardens are host to many small birds that are usually kept away by the miners, but the honeyeaters’ call alerts them to danger.

#12

The honeyeater’s alarm calls are not simple warnings, but a complex language rich with meaning. The birds that are listening are capable of decoding and understanding these messages.

#13

alarm communication in birds has been studied using a playback study approach. This involves playing recorded bird vocalizations through loudspeakers and then observing a bird’s responses. McLachlan added video recordings to her study, which allowed her to view extremely fine-scale responses in small birds that were difficult to see.

#14

There are two types of alarm calls made by birds: mobbing calls and flee alarm calls. Mobbing calls are made in response to predators that are not moving at high speed, and so are not an immediate or intense threat. Flee alarm calls, on the other hand, are made in response to predators in flight, which is a lot more dangerous for a bird.

#15

The ability to refer to a specific object or event in the environment is unique to human communication. It was thought that animals only communicated internal state, but this changed in the 1970s ...