Book

Mynott, Jeremy.

Birdscapes : birds in our imagination and experience / Jeremy Mynott.

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, ©2009.

xi, 367 pages, 8 pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps, music ; 25 cm.

What draws us to the beauty of a peacock, the flight of an eagle, or the song of a nightingale? Why are birds so significant in our lives and our sense of the world? And what do our ways of thinking about and experiencing birds tell us about ourselves? Birdscapes is a unique meditation on the variety of human responses to birds, from antiquity to today, and from casual observers to the globe-trotting "twitchers" who sometimes risk life, limb, and marriages simply to add new species to their "life lists."

Bird watching.

Birds -- Psychological aspects.

Human-animal relationships.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-345) and indexes.

Ch. 1. Wondering about birds -- Shingle Street -- Witnesses and prophets -- Birds and ourselves -- Ch. 2. Amusive birds: attraction and association -- Horsey -- Favourites and fancies -- Meanings and masks -- Charisma and beyond -- Ch. 3. Seeing a difference -- Isles of Scilly -- Distinctions and differences -- Species and individuals -- Observing and perceiving -- Illusion and self-deception -- Patterns, profiles, and all that jazz -- Ch. 4. Rarity value -- Central Park -- The listing habit -- Collection and possession -- The hunting instinct -- Extreme pursuits -- Discovery and diversity -- Ch. 5. Beauty and the beholder -- Volga Delta -- Signs of life -- Image and imagination -- Colour and form -- Art and nature -- Ch.6. The sense of sound -- Little Thurlow -- Sound and silence -- Sounds different -- Signs of sound -- "And the winner is..." -- The sound of music -- Ch. 7. A time and a place -- Flannan Isles -- The sense of season -- Birds in a landscape -- Ch. 8. Wild nature: the politics of preference -- Old Hall Marshes -- Disturbance and disorientation -- Intervention and conservation -- Belonging? -- Ch. 9. Naming matters -- Kakadu -- What's in a name? -- Facts and fancies: naming the birds -- Invention and discovery -- Regulation and resistance: The Esperanto illusion Ch. 10. Birds are good to think with -- Delphi -- A bird told me -- Signs and symbols -- Eagles and emblems -- Why Birds? -- Seeing what you believe -- Like a bird -- Envoi: "Stirred for a bird." -- Shingle Street -- Appendix I. Some notable lists: The Sumerians, Thomas Jefferson, John Clare -- Appendix II. Birds and bonnets: a New York hat story -- Appendix III. Nightingale mysteries -- Appendix IV. Some Australian bird names

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