Reviewed by Tony Orman
Thanks to this book and everything I learned while researching it, I now know what was going on in my brain. –Grainee Cleary
Why do birds do what they do?
Grainee Clearey wrote an earlier book Why Do Birds Do That?
Following the publishing of that earlier book, readers asked many questions such as “why do birds sing?” and “what’s the dawn chorus about?” So, wondering herself, she went searching and this book answers those two questions and many more. She found as she began writing her latest book that there were parallels relating to humans such as how we humans learn our own language.
“It blew my mind!” she confesses.
Another dyslexic success story
It was particularly relevant to her for from an early age, she had difficulty pronouncing words and language development was slow. Year five she was diagnosed with dyslexia.
“Thanks to this book and everything I learned while researching it, I now know what was going on in my brain,” she reflects. “So even though I started this book asking why birds sing, I ended up finding out why I mispronounce so many words and don’t always speak correctly. I would have made a poor songbird!”
Why Do Birds Sing details many of the studies. Wisely the chapters are short thus enhancing “technology transfer” making it easy for the reader’s to “mental digest” the science.
So many questions about birds!
The questions, probably 100 or mores such as
- “Can birds count?”
- “Do parents help build brainy birds?”
- “Why do we call them bird brains?”
- “How do young songbirds learn to sing?”
- “Do birds learn new songs?”
- ”How do female birds assess male song?”
Some are quite novel such as “Are Australian magpies smarter than their bullies?”
”Do birds sleep like us?”, “Do birds gossip before they go to sleep?” and “Which is better at solving problems; crows or monkeys?”
Connections and misconceptions
Towards the end of the book the author covers links between birds’ brains and human diseases such as Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Huntingtons as well as conditions like traumatic brain injury in humans and dyslexia.
It’s a funny-peculiar thing about humans’ misconception. The term “bird brain” is used to describe a dimwit, but birds are far from limited intelligence as this book illustrates. There’s some intriguing scientific studies gone into birds and their interactions.
The book is based on Australia with magpies often featuring. But magpies are here so it’s relevant to New Zealand. This is a book that will open up a whole new avian world for the reader.
Although the book lacks photos and even illustrations, it’s a really fascinating read.
Why Do Birds Sing? by Dr. Grainne Cleary is published by Allen and Unwin, RRP $37.99