Why Birds Sing

Author : David Rothenberg
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 9780465071364
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Birds Sing written by David Rothenberg and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2006-04-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing richness of birdsong is both an aesthetic and a scientific mystery. Evolutionists have never been able to completely explain why birdsong is so inventive and why many species devote so many hours to singing. The standard explanations of defending territories and attracting mates don't begin to account for the variety and energy that the commonest birds exhibit. Is it possible that birds sing because they like to? This seemingly naive explanation is starting to look more and more like the truth. Why Birds Sing is a lyric exploration of birdsong that blends the latest scientific research with a deep understanding of musical beauty and form. Drawing on conversations with neuroscientists, ecologists, and composers, it is the first book to investigate the elusive question of why birds sing and what their song means to both avian and human ears. Whether playing his clarinet with the whitecrested laughing thrush in Pittsburgh, or jamming in the Australian winter breeding grounds of the Albert's lyrebird, Rothenberg immerses himself in the heart and soul of birdsong. He approaches the subject as a naturalist, philosopher, musician, and investigator. An intimate look at the mostlovely of natural phenomena, Why Birds Sing is a beautifully written exploration of a phenomenon that's at once familiar and profoundly alien.

Author : Nina Berkhout
Publisher : ECW Press
ISBN 13 : 1773056212
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Birds Sing written by Nina Berkhout and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A charming, deeply felt novel about human connection and finding music between the notes When opera singer Dawn Woodward has an onstage flameout, all she wants is to be left alone. She’s soon faced with other complications the day her husband announces her estranged brother-in-law, Tariq, is undergoing cancer treatment and moving in, his temperamental parrot in tow. To make matters worse, though she can’t whistle herself, she has been tasked with teaching arias to an outspoken group of devoted siffleurs who call themselves the Warblers. Eventually, Tariq and his bird join the class, and Dawn forms unexpected friendships with her new companions. But when her marriage shows signs of trouble and Tariq’s health declines, she begins questioning her foundations, including the career that she has worked so hard to build and the true nature of love and song.

Author : Barry Kent MacKay
Publisher : Stackpole Books
ISBN 13 : 9780811727877
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bird Sounds written by Barry Kent MacKay and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete exploration of bird vocalization. Striking full-color illustrations throughout.

Author : Evie Wyld
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 0307907775
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book All the Birds, Singing written by Evie Wyld and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, a stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt and loss, and the power of forgiveness. Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rain and battering wind. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wants it to be. But every few nights something—or someone—picks off one of the sheep and sounds a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, and rumors of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is also Jake’s past, hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back—a past that threatens to break into the present. With exceptional artistry and empathy, All the Birds, Singing reveals an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

Author : Donald Kroodsma
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0547344872
Total Pages : 501 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Singing Life of Birds written by Donald Kroodsma and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listen to birds sing as you’ve never listened before, as the world-renowned birdsong expert Donald Kroodsma takes you on personal journeys of discovery and intrigue. Read stories of wrens and robins, thrushes and thrashers, warblers and whip-poor-wills, bluebirds and cardinals, and many more bird. Learn how each acquires its songs, how songs vary from bird to bird and place to place, how some birds' singing is especially beautiful or ceaseless or complex, how some do not sing at all, how the often quiet female has the last word, and why. Hear a baby wren and the author’s own daughter babble as each learns its local dialect. Listen to the mockingbird by night and by day and count how many different songs he can sing. Marvel at the exquisite harmony in the duet of a wood thrush as he uses his two voice boxes to accompany himself. Feel the extraordinary energy in the songs just before sunrise as dawn’s first light sweeps across this singing planet. Hear firsthand the unmistakable evidence that there are not one but two species of marsh wrens and two species of winter wrens in North America. Learn not only to hear but to see birds sing in the form of sonagrams, as these visual images dance across the pages while you listen to the accompanying audio. Using your trained ears and eyes, you can begin your own journeys of discovery. Listen anew to birds in your backyard and beyond, exploring the singing minds of birds as they tell all that they know. Join Kroodsma not only in identifying but in identifying with singing birds, connecting with nature’s musicians in a whole new way. Please note: this ebook includes embedded audio files. You will only be able to access these files from a device that supports embedded audio.

Author : Tim Low
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300226802
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Where Song Began written by Tim Low and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries. From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.

Author : Daniel V. Meier Jr.
Publisher : BQB Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1945448962
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book No Birds Sing Here written by Daniel V. Meier Jr. and published by BQB Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The search for the literary life. Satire at its Best! In this indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time, two young people, Beckman and Malany set out on an odyssey to find meaning and reality in the artistic life, and in doing so unleash a barrage of humorous, unintended consequences. Beckman and Malany's journey reflects the allegorical evolution of humanity from its primal state, represented by Beckman's dismal life as a dishwasher to the crude, medieval development of mankind in a pool hall, and then to the false but erudite veneer of sophistication of the academic world. The world these protagonists live in is a world without love. It has every other variety of drive and emotion, but not love. Do they know it? Not yet. And they won't until they figure out why no birds sing here. Meier's writing is precise and detailed, whether the situation he describes is clear or ambiguous. Fans of Franzen and Salinger will find Meier to be another sharp, provocative writer of our time.

Author : Jennifer Ackerman
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0399563121
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Genius of Birds written by Jennifer Ackerman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Lovely, celebratory. For all the belittling of ‘bird brains,’ [Ackerman] shows them to be uniquely impressive machines . . .” —New York Times Book Review “A lyrical testimony to the wonders of avian intelligence.” —Scientific American An award-winning science writer tours the globe to reveal what makes birds capable of such extraordinary feats of mental prowess Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. According to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores their newly discovered brilliance and how it came about. As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research, Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are shifting our view of what it means to be intelligent. At once personal yet scientific, richly informative and beautifully written, The Genius of Birds celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures. Ackerman is also the author of Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast.

Author : Donald Kroodsma
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 13 : 1328919110
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Birdsong for the Curious Naturalist written by Donald Kroodsma and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2020 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birdsong made easy to understand, lavishly illustrated with color photos, and accompanied by more than 700 online recordings From a leading expert, Birdsong for the Curious Naturalist is a basic, how-to guide that teaches anyone--from beginner to advanced birder--how to listen. In understandable and appealing language, Kroodsma explains why and how birds sing, what various calls mean, and what to listen for from the birds around us. The descriptions are accompanied by color photos of the birds, as well as QR codes that link to an online collection of more than 700 recordings. With these resources, readers are prepared to recognize bird sounds and the birds that make them. Kroodsma encourages readers to find the joy of birdsong and curiosity--to observe, listen intently, be curious, ask questions, and realize that many unanswered questions about birdsong don't have to rely on scientists for answers but can be answered by any curious naturalist.

Author : Charles Hartshorne
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.9J/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Born to Sing written by Charles Hartshorne and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1973, Born to Sing is a monumental undertaking, one of the most comprehensive, totally entertaining studies of bird vocalizations ever available. It offers a global survey of modes of singing, encompassing more than 5,000 species of singing birds, with special analyses of nearly 200 species with highly developed songs. For the professional ornithologist, informed birdwatchers, biologists, psychologists, philosophers, and musicologists with a strong interest in nature.