How do birds fly south?

Did you know the external ‘shell’ of the ear is the pinna? That a woman’s oestrogen level alters the way she hears the male voice, making it richer, and thus may affect her choice of mate? That Pride and Prejudice was published the year (1813) that Europeans discovered the kiwil? That Leonardo da Vinci ‘was one of the first to comment on the extra-ordinary tongue of the woodpecker’? These are some indicators of the general interest of this book, subtitled ‘What It’s Like to Be a Bird’, which demonstrates humans are much more birdlike than previously thought.

The principal reason is that, like them, we rely most on vision and hearing. Ever more sophisticated research reveals that birds also share our other sensory perceptions, touch, taste and smell. The author, a science professor at Sheffield University whose principal subject of research is bird promiscuity (what a dinner-party opener), even argues convincingly that birds have feelings. The subject is unavoidably scientific but written for a general readership without populist condescension.

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James Heale

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There has been a sea change in our understanding of animal behaviour. The retired sensory biologists Tim Birkhead questioned complained that their research had been either unconsidered or their discoveries simply not accepted. Nonetheless, these remain early days. ‘We have a good basic understanding of at least some of the senses of birds, but the best is yet to come,’ is the challenging conclusion.

There are seven chapters — Seeing, Hearing, Touch, Taste, Smell, Magnetic Sense, Emotions — each with its quota of fascinating and often incredible revelations. The subject of emotions is probably the most contenti ous, verging as it does on the scientifically forbidden territory of anthropomorphism. The difference between our bodies and birds’ is invariably one of modification rather than kind.