Thinking with Birds

How birds have inspired us and shaped the way we think, around the world and across time.

What the stork with an African arrow through its neck taught Europeans. How the tapping of woodpeckers in the Californian redwoods forecasts rain. Why some see the robin redbreast as a death omen. How the nightingale carried messages in a Persian tale of star-crossed lovers. Why the swifts that circle Oxford's dreaming spires were once called devil-screechers. How the red kite came back from the edge of extinction and gave us hope. In Thinking with Birds, Oxford anthropologist Felice Wyndham answers each of these fascinating questions and more, introducing us to the beautiful, ingenious birds that have informed and enriched our lives. We meet the falcons who hunt alongside us, the waxwings who tell us when berries are ripe for picking, and the honeyguides who lead us to wild bees' nests deep in the rainforest. We learn what birds' astonishing migration patterns reveal about our planet's seasons and geography and how, as feathered dinosaurs, they have transformed our understanding of deep time. Lyrical and eye-opening, Thinking with Birds explores the profound and surprising ways birds have shaped how we think, around the world and across time, and how repairing our relationship with birds can transform our own lives and our planet's future.