The Thing With Feathers: The Surprising Lives Of Birds And What They Reveal About Humans, by Noah Strycher

One of the themes of a great many contemporary books is the similarities that animals have with human beings in somewhat surprising ways that people have tended to think only belong to ourselves. While it is perhaps understandable (if lamentable) that a species as self-absorbed as human beings are is so easy to think of ourselves as possessing unique qualities that in fact we share with others (if perhaps few others), it is not obvious that we always understand things better when we recognize that there are occasional similarities between ourselves and other species, like birds. For some, these similarities amount to a proof of convergent evolution, the similarities being a sign of common origin without common design, while for others, it should be expected that a Creator who consciously intends that His nature and attributes should be clearly seen in His creation would occasionally provide external examples of that nature for the benefit of human beings who are perhaps not inclined to reflect on ourselves but can notice others, at least sometimes. The author of this book, it must be admitted, certainly uses birds as a means to reflect on tendencies of human beings with a desire for readers to follow suit.

In the acknowledgements to this book, the author reveals that this book was in the mind of an editor and that he was commissioned to write it. This is a curious and welcome admission. The author is a noted bird-watcher from the Pacific Northwest, and reveals in this book his own fondness for observing birds both near his home and further away, so he is certainly qualified to write a book like this one and this book is a skilled one full of interest in and concern about birds and their well-being as well as their endearing quirks. It is telling and pleasing, though, to see an author admit that the source for their book was not an idea in their own head but rather an idea that came from someone else that they ran with and did a good job in working up into a book. One wonders why this is not admitted more often. The process of writing and the genius of inspiration are complicated, and it surely happens often that the idea for a book and the execution of a book belong in different hands, though some writers might feel bad about admitting such a fact because it might seem to hurt the idea of the uniqueness of inspiration for the author. Fittingly, though, in a book that seeks to show human beings how to be modest when it comes to accepting that birds sometimes have human-like qualities that are worthy of our respect and appreciation, so to authors can be humble about admitting when others inspire their works, even when those works are themselves worthy of appreciation.

In terms of its structure, this book of between 250 and 300 pages is divided into three parts and about a dozen unnumbered chapters. After beginning with an introduction, the first part of the book looks at birds from the point of view of the body. This section of the book contains chapters on how pigeons get around, the supposed spontaneous order (itself with simple but notable rules) of starling flocks, the contentious smelling abilities of turkey buzzards, the wanderlust of snowy owls, and the dangerous implications of hummingbird wars for overburdened human beings. The second part, mind, examines such phenomena as the fear of penguins and how it affects their lives, the phenomena of dancing parrots and what it teaches us about our love of music and its connection to verbal mimicry, the complex nature of chicken pecking orders, and the hoarding nature of nutcracker jays. The last part of the book, spirit, reflects on magpies and their surprising capability for self-awareness, the aesthetics of bower birds, the cooperation of fairy wrens, and the immense devotion of lonely but faithful albatross lovers. The book then ends with acknowledgements, notes and sources, and an index.