At least we don’t have to smell it, though, as we wait patiently with him in his backyard for some vultures to show up. As he tells this story and how it played out with such wry humor and oh-gosh enthusiasm, the reader of The Thing With Featherscan’t argue with his plan. (Can’t you just hear that wondrous whispering voice!) As a first bird-of-interest….an interesting choice! The question he was inspired to investigate was, did vultures hunt by sight or smell? And as Noah conceived it, all he needed was a dead deer carcass to attract his subject and further, now that he had achieved a driver’s license, all he had to do was comb the back roads of his neighborhood to locate a fresh one. When he was still in high school he relates that he was inspired by a nature show on TV narrated by David Attenborough to study vultures. My first thought is, I want to meet Noah’s mother! Really, both his parents. You’ve never read a book about birds like this one.Armchair Birding: Keeping up With Noah Strycker
With humor, style, and grace, he shows how our view of the world is often, and remarkably, through the experience of birds. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, the lifelong loves of albatrosses, and other mysteries-revealing why birds do what they do, and offering a glimpse into our own nature.ĭrawing deep from personal experience, cutting-edge science, and colorful history, Noah Strycker spins captivating stories about the birds in our midst and shares the startlingly intimate coexistence of birds and humans. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself.
" thinks like a biologist but writes like a poet." - Wall Street JournalĪn entertaining and profound look at the lives of birds, illuminating their surprising world-and deep connection with humanity.īirds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood.
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