So many of us turned to birds during the pandemic. What about that time do you think drove you to immerse yourself in the world of owls? Did you get to know any owls near your home during lockdown? In your afterword, you note that you decided to write this book during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My dad gave me my first pair of binoculars and my first bird field guide. We would rise before dawn, head down to the canal and the woods along the Potomac River, and listen in the dark for birdsong. Bird-watching was a good way to get some time alone with him. He was a busy guy (with five daughters!) when I was young, but he loved to get out on weekends and look for warblers and thrushes. My dad had been a bird-watcher himself since childhood, when he learned about birds and birdsong as a Boy Scout. When I was 7 or 8, I started bird-watching with my dad along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal in Washington, D.C. Those stories of pivotal moments really resonated with me. Did you have a similar early-in-life feeling of certainty about working with birds? More than one of the researchers and scientists you introduce in What an Owl Knows spoke of a pivotal moment in childhood when they knew they were meant to work with owls. Read our starred review of ‘What an Owl Knows’ by Jennifer Ackerman. How do they communicate? Why do they sing so gloriously? And how do they learn their songs? What’s going on in their minds while they forage, build nests, raise their young? How do they make decisions and solve problems? This launched me into The Genius of Birds and The Bird Way, and from there to owls. I got interested in what makes birds tick. I’m an avid reader of scientific journals, and I noticed an abundance of new research about the shifting view of bird brains and bird behavior. Chance in the House of Fate is about the genetic similarities between humans and other organisms, the long thread of DNA that connects us with all living things.īut in 2013, my husband was diagnosed with cancer, and I decided to turn my attention back to nature and to my first love: birds. I took a detour into human biology because I was fascinated by the riddle of humanity’s place in the natural world. My first book, Birds by the Shore, explored the nature of the mid-Atlantic coast, including ospreys and shorebirds. What prompted that transition from writing about people to writing about our feathered friends? In your more recent books, you’ve turned to birds. Your earlier books (e.g., Chance in the House of Fate, Ah-Choo! and Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream) were about humans. So it’s the whole package of mystery, cuteness, extraordinary skills and intelligence that inspires awe and wonder. And yet they’re also so very different from us-strange, mysterious denizens of the dark, capable of flying silently and navigating the night, with sensory powers beyond our own that allow them to hunt in the pitch black. We see ourselves in them, with their huge heads and big forward-facing eyes (and yes, their cute faces). I would say all of the above! Owls have enchanted humans for tens of thousands of years. What an absolutely fascinating book you’ve written! What do you think is the quality that makes humans most intrigued by owls-their wide-eyed cuteness, their perceived wisdom, their air of mystery? Now, with What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds, she shines a light on “the most distinctive order of birds in the world.” We asked Ackerman about her research, including her travels far and wide to meet with scientists, researchers and countless volunteers dedicated to observing and understanding these enigmatic creatures-and figuring out how we can help save them. In fact, the award-winning science writer and bestselling author has written three books about them ( The Genius of Birds, Birds by the Shore and The Bird Way).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |