Throughout the bird world, there are abundant examples of strange and often poorly understood behaviour. These include:
Tales of
Dominic Couzens has written more than 30 books on birds and other wildlife including RSPB The Secret Lives of Garden Birds, RSPB The Secret Lives of British Birds and RSPB The Secret Lives of Garden Wildlife. His most recent books include The Secret Lives of Puffins with photographer Mark Sisson and Birds: ID Insights: Identifying the more difficult birds of Britain with artist David Nurney. He writes regularly for a number of magazines on wildlife and travel, and also leads field trips in Britain and abroad.
• The Superb Fairywren, where visiting
males bring flowers to a female as a nuptial gift in full view of her ‘husband’.
• The Andean Cock-of-the-rock that displays using a male partner
Remarkable
• The White-winged Chough that ‘kidnaps’ its neighbours’ fledglings.
BIRDS Dominic Couzens
www.bloomsbury.com £20.00 US$25.00
• The female Ostrich that uses other hens’ eggs as a protective buffer. • The strange relationship between the Purple Grenadier and its ‘stalker’, the Straw-tailed Whydah • The Rockhopper Penguin that routinely wastes an egg
• The Cliff Swallow which is evolving
shorter wings to avoid traffic
• The seabird that nests in a treetop • The warbler that keeps on migrating the
wrong way!
Remarkable birds Tales of
This book takes five birds from every continent including Antarctica – and a number of island species – to explore a wide range of bird behaviour including songs and calls, parasitism, nest-sharing, feeding adaptations, breeding display and mating. Lavishly illustrated in full colour, it is an intriguing look at a number of familiar – and many more less well-known birds – and why they behave as they do.
Dominic Couzens
Front cover: © Getty Images / irawansubingarphotography Back cover: © Getty Images / Tim Laman
REMARKABLE BIRDS repro for Lisa.indd 1
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