SY MONTGOMERY / Birdology: Lessons Learned from a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons...

SY MONTGOMERY

Birdology: Lessons Learned from a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Cassowary

Do hawks show emotion, like anger and frustration? Are chickens sympathetic? How much bird behavior is instinct? Are birds actually living dinosaurs? Is there a secret emotional life to birds that we are only beginning to discover? 

In Birdology, Sy Montgomery -- naturalist, bestselling author of the immensely popular The Good Good Pig, documentary scriptwriter, and radio commentator --answers these questions and many more while recounting her characteristically entertaining encounters with some very distinct avian personalities. Enlisting the expertise of hummingbird rehabbers, falconers, pigeon racers, and scientists, Montgomery explores the complex lives of our feathered friends with rich detail and her trademark personal zeal. 

Montgomery relates the science and natural history of birds, restoring both our awe and connection to the winged creatures we see every day and yet take for granted. In spite of their wildness, strangeness, and differences -- and the millennia-long divergence from our common ancestor and our disparate evolutionary paths -- birds are able to form bonds with humans and share emotional and intellectual capacities remarkably like our own. Sy writes: “Birds have been trying to educate me since I was a child. I have always loved watching and reading about and learning from them. But even more importantly, birds always come into my life at critical moments to enrich my spirit and enlarge my heart.” 

Along the way, Sy reveals the 7 Essential Truths about Birds: you’ll want to come hear her to find out what they are!

Sy Montgomery writes for children as well as adults. Among her award-winning books are The Good Good Pig, Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger, and Search for the Golden Moon Bear. She has made four trips to Peru and Brazil to study the pink dolphins of the Amazon; and on other expeditions, she was chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire; bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica; undressed by an orangutan in Borneo; and hunted by a tiger in India. She also worked in a pit crawling with eighteen thousand snakes in Manitoba; handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana; and swam with piranhas, electric eels, and dolphins in the Amazon. For this book, Sy took years of falconry lessons and worked with a rehabilitator to raise (and later release to the wild) orphaned baby hummingbirds born the size of bumblebees, and traveled to Australia to see the most dangerous birds in the world. She lives in New Hampshire.