One Wild Bird At A Time: Portraits of Individual Lives

In One Wild Bird at a Time, Heinrich returns to his great love: close, day-to-day observations of individual wild birds. Heinrich argues that some of the most amazing bird behaviors fall below the radar of what most birds do in aggregate. Heinrich's observations lead to fascinating questions -- and sometimes startling discoveries. A great crested flycatcher, while bringing food to the young in their nest, is attacked by the other flycatcher nearby. Why? A pair of Northern flickers hammering their nest-hole into the side of Heinrich's cabin deliver the opportunity to observe the feeding competition between siblings, and to make a related discovery about nest-cleaning. One of a clutch of redstart warbler babies fledges out of the nest from twenty feet above the ground, and lands on the grass below. It can't fly. What will happen next?

An eminent biologist shares the joys of bird-watching and how observing the anomalous behaviors of individual birds has guided his research.
ng scientific research without leaving one's own backyard.