Birdsong: A Natural History [Hardcover]

Don Stap (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 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? We quickly discover that one question leads to another. Why does the chestnut-sided warbler sing one song before dawn and another after sunrise? Why does the brown thrasher have a repertoire of two thousand songs when the chipping sparrow has only one? And how is the hermit thrush able to sing a duet with itself, producing two sounds simultaneously to create its beautiful, flutelike melody?

Stap's lucid prose distills the complexities of the study of birdsong and unveils a remarkable discovery that sheds light on the mystery of mysteries: why young birds in the suborder oscines -- the "true songbirds" -- learn their songs but the closely related suboscines are born with their songs genetically encoded. As the story unfolds, Stap contemplates our enduring fascination with birdsong, from ancient pictographs and early Greek soothsayers, who knew that bird calls represented the voices of the gods, to the story of Mozart's pet starling.

In a modern, noisy world, it is increasingly difficult to hear those voices of the gods. Exploring birdsong takes us to that rare place -- in danger of disappearing forever -- where one hears only the planet's oldest music.

Editorial Reviews

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.

From Booklist

Why do birds sing? And why do some birds sing complex songs and others repeat the same simple tune? Stap, a frequent contributor to Audubon and other magazines, explores the natural history and science of birdsong as he follows both the birds and the ornithologists studying them. The songbirds are among the few animals on the planet (the others being humans and some cetaceans) that must learn their vocalizations from their parents. The seemingly endless types of birdsong created during this learning process, and through the isolation of birds from their compatriots, produces endless scientific questions to be answered. Stap observes two of the world's experts on birdsong as they attempt to answer these questions, and what follows is a fascinating look at science in action. Along the way we learn that the best research raises as many questions as it answers, and we begin to understand the profound curiosity that drives the best scientists. This excellent book will challenge readers to listen to birds as well as watch them. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Edition edition (March 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743232747
• ISBN-13: 978-0743232746
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,363,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Travels With Birders, June 30, 2005

By 

Carole A. Prendergast - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Birdsong: A Natural History (Hardcover)

In his excellent earlier book, Parrot Without a Name, Don Stap traveled with John O'Neill and Ted Parker to Peru to find rare birds. In his new book, Birdsong, he travels with two experts of avian bioacoustics, Don Kroodsma and Greg Budney to hear rare birds. This is a book about bird song (how and why birds sing), however, I also found his portrayal of the two individual scientists fascinating. Although they come from different backgrounds and training, these two men approach bird song with equal passion.

This book takes the reader on an inside tour of the hurdles and obstacles that avian scientists face. Kroosdma, Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Massachusetts, is a very thorough scientist who questions conventional thinking. For example, Kroodsma was surprised to hear the bellbird singing three different songs in different regions of Costa Rica. Going against conventional scientific thinking, he suspected that this suboscine bird learned its song (which accounted for the regional variations), which suboscines aren't supposed to do. Rather, they are believed to be born knowing their songs. Stap follows Kroosdma around recording the bellbird to gather evidence to counter the prevailing theory. But even with recordings and considerable scientific evidence, he still was not able to convince a major foundation to fund the study.

Stap also follows Greg Budney, Curator of the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, during a sound recording workshop. Don joins other workshop participants to learn how Greg records bird songs for the Lab, explaining how far Greg will go to get a good recording. While working with Ted Parker, Greg fell into a spiny palm tree and got needlelike thorns jammed into his hand. After using razor blades to remove them, he went right back to recording. On that trip Ted Parker told him, "You've got to get out there and record the birds while they are there, before the forests are cut down." Greg takes this statement seriously, and recruits people at his sound recording workshops to help in this conservation effort. Budney's enthusiasm convinces every participant that he might record something never before captured on tape. Greg's passion for birdsong and conservation are contagious, and Stap's writing is so compelling, you feel you are standing in the field with the participants struggling to get a good recording of a bird.

In this book, Birdsong, Don Stap describes his travels with two of the best scientists in the field, making it sound like great science and great fun. As I closed the last page, I wondered which ornithologists he will pick to accompany for his next book. Whoever it is, you can bet it will be worth the trip.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Birds do It; Let's Do It, May 24, 2006

By 

R. Schultz (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Birdsong: A Natural History (Hardcover)

This is a slightly dry, matter-of-fact account of the work of an ardent, academic birdwatcher specializing in Bewick wrens and bellbirds. The author, Don Stap, followed master birder Don Kroodsma off-and-on for ten years as he made his precise accounting of these birds.

There are some sections of the book that give you a feel for what it is really like on the ground, going to often remote, politically troubled locations in an attempt to sight birds. We hear about the difficulties of hooking up with a promised guide in Nicaragua, and the ways in which the team had to rough it failing all amenities. But it seems the birders must have had many more adventures along the way that would have made for really lively reading. I would think you could get a sit-com/drama series of personality conflicts, mishaps, and enlightening nature lore out of these expeditions into the wild. However there isn't quite the necessary narrative flow here, nor the eye for humorous detail, to bring this out.

Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile book. You will learn a lot about banding birds and distinguishing their calls. You will learn a lot about patience and standing still. You will meet birds in their native setting. You will also learn about some of the academic squabbles endemic to the profession, and how much birdwatching is NOT like going out into a primal Eden of harmony and grace.

Most important of all though, this book will alert you to the existence of the Macauley Library of Natural Sounds at Cornell, a repository of nature recordings made by amateurs and professionals from the days of Edison's invention of the recording machine up to the present. In spite of this long history of collecting sounds, there is still a lot more to be collected. Stap assures the reader that it would be possible to go out in your garden tomorrow with a recorder and to capture the sound of some species that has never before been captured on record. So you could make your own contribution to Macauley.

This book demonstrates how much birdwatching can be an activity everyone can enjoy.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How birdsong clues are collected and interpreted by experts, June 7, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Birdsong: A Natural History (Hardcover)

Supplement Professor Kroodsma's title with Don Stap's survey of how birdsong clues are collected and interpreted by experts in his fascinating Birdsong: A Natural History. Birdsong focuses on the mysteries of birdsong, from how birds learn and develop regional 'dialects' to an even more fascinating set of insights on the influence of birdsong on great musicians. From how bird sounds are captured using sensitive equipment in the wild to exactly what a bird is 'saying' in a 2-3 second song, Stap provides a lively survey indeed.