The study of bird song has been a fascinating and mysterious passion for many
people. Four recent books consider the subject in very different ways: |
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The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong. Donald Kroodsma. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 482 pp. CD of birdsongs included. $28.00
From Publishers Weekly
Kroodsma, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, shares what he's learned from
more than three decades of recording and analyzing the songs of birds in this intriguing,
instructional book. Using "sonagrams" (also known as sound spectrograms, they plot a sound's
frequency over time), he illustrates the songs of 30 birds, from the familiar American robin to
the exotic three-wattled bellbird of Costa Rica. He considers how birds acquire their songs (some
species learn them; others have their tunes "encoded somehow in nucleotide sequences of the
DNA"), what makes the songs unique, what functions they serve, and how they've evolved. No two
species sound alike, of course, but groups of birds within each species have their own dialects,
and individual birds have their own repertoires as well. A CD of the bird songs discussed is
included, as are descriptions of the recording equipment Kroodsma used and explanations on how to
make similar recordings and "sonagrams." Kroodsma is a warm, encouraging guide to the world of
birdsong, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
NPR's Terry Gross recently
explored the topic in a story on Fresh Air Weekend, in which she spoke to Don Stap and Donald
Kroodsma. Listen to the story on NPRs website:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4565590
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Birdsong. Don Stap. Simon & Schuster, 2005. Following one of the world’s experts on birdsong from the woods of Martha’s Vineyard to the tropical forests of Central America, Don Stap brings to life the quest to unravel an ancient mystery: Why do birds sing and what do their songs mean? Birdsong details the work and passions of people who analyze the sounds of birds. Stap followed Kroodsma from the lab into the field to write his account of the researcher at work.272 pp. $24.00
From Publishers Weekly
The field of avian bio-acoustics has dragged birdsong from the domain of poets into the realm of
the hard sciences. English professor Stap (A Parrot Without a Name) explores it through this
engaging profile of ornithologist Don Kroodsma and his pioneering field studies of birdsong in
the wild. Birdsongs are learned rather than instinctual (the brown thrasher has a repertoire of
2,ooo songs), and Stap delves into the complex processes by which birds acquire them, the
individual idiosyncrasies and regional dialects that color them, and the mating behaviors and
territorial antagonisms they regulate. As he tramps along with ornithologists through the predawn
woods in search of early-rising songbirds, Stap crafts an absorbing account of the scientific
process itself of the meticulous, often obsessive lengths to which Kroodsma and his colleagues go
to record and analyze these evanescent melodies, and of the bitter methodological controversies
between field ornithologists and scientists who prefer controlled but perhaps misleadingly
artificial experiments in the laboratory. A lucidly written combination of scientific lore and
vivid reportage, the book is a thoughtful treatment of one of nature's most beguiling phenomena.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song. David Rothenberg. Basic Books, 2005. A lyric exploration of bird song that blends the latest scientific research with a deep understanding of musical beauty and form. 258 pp. $24.00
From Publishers Weekly:
As science explores the frontiers of the measurable, it begins to intrude into the realm
of art, and this book occupies that uneasy zone. Rothenberg, a musician and philosopher,
became fascinated with the similarities between human music and birds' songs. His
investigations into these matters led him to zoos and forests, where he played his
clarinet along with virtuoso lyrebirds and thrushes. His goal: to find out why birds sing
by using "the whole toolbox of human talents," rather than just the theories and
experiments of reductionist Darwinism. "Just because science demonstrates that a song has
a specific territorial or sexual purpose doesn't mean that birds aren't singing because
they love to," he writes. Assuming we can know what a bird loves to do is quite a bit of
anthropomorphic conjecture, of course. "It may be impossible to escape the human
perspective," Rothenberg writes, and then he joyfully acknowledges what he feels to be
the truth: birds make music as surely as Charlie "Bird" Parker ever did. Rothenberg
delves heartily into the lovely and strange structures of bird songs and finds enough
syllables, rhythms and syncopations to fill a jazz encyclopedia. Illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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| More books about bird song
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Nature’s Music: the Science of Birdsong. Peter R. MARLER and Hans SLABBEKOORN. Academic Press, 2004. Local dialects in birdsong, and how it is used for fighting and flirting. Heavily illustrated with spectrograms, many with recordings on an accompanying CD. 504 pp. $74.95
Nature´s Music brings together some of the world´s experts on birdsong, to
review the advances that have taken place in our understanding of how and why birds sing,
what their songs and calls mean, and how they have evolved.
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1379. CATCHPOLE, C.K. and P.J.B. SLATER. Bird Song: Biological Themes and Variations. Cambridge University
Press, 1995. Pen-and-ink illustrations by Nigel MANN. 248 pp. Cloth - $55.00; Paper - $43.00
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22-223. HARDING, Cheryl F., Richard MOONEY, J.M. WILD and Philip H. ZEIGLER. Behavioral Neurobiology of Bird Song. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2004. 32 papers constitute the proceedings of a conference in New York in 2002. 350 pp. Special order. Cloth - $145.00; Paper - $89.95
Birdsong has become an important model for brain function research.
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1435. HARTSHORNE, Charles. Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song. Indiana, 1973. 304 pp.
Cloth - $35.00; Paper - $15.00
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