Currently, there are about ten thousand bird species in the world. They live in deserts and polar regions, crossing the highest mountains and most remote Islands. Some are sporty flyer, others have become residents of the Floor. The six inches of small Bee Hummingbird from the family of the humming bird weighs 1.8 grams, less than the feather of an ostrich, which, in turn, may be two and a half feet tall and a hundred and thirty pounds. Authors of natural history books show this Abundance equally excited and overwhelmed. A complete Overview of acceptable length, you can offer the reader even about the birds of Germany.

Kai Spanke

editor in the features section.

F. A. Z.

The biologist Walter A. Sontag is not attempting a systematic review. Instead of the richness of the species to track down, explored it in his new book, the diversity within individual species: “Each bird individual is a solitaire.” Zoologists such as Heini Hediger, the tried to an empirical animal psychology, interested in early for the personalities of non-human living beings. Once scientists fremdelten long, have you now found a liking to the field of research. Different temperaments make it often to the tendency to react aggressively to stimuli or the environment to explore.

Fine clocked perception

Sontag cites a 2010 study, the authors examined titmice, one or two years the sleeping habits of southern German blue. Among the animals some specimens, which set out very early, while others started late in the day found themselves. It was crucial that they maintained this behavior in each case permanently.

In addition, is dedicated to the author of the reproductive behaviour, enemy and partnerships, as well as the perception of possibilities. The latter discusses Tim Birkhead, in the 2012 monograph published “Bird Sense”, however, so basic that Sontag’s contribution in the best case, has the character of a Supplement. Although hearing, smell and taste are explored more intensively, the eye as the prominent sensory organ of birds.

Between the introduction and“Special Interest“

A pied Flycatcher, approximately per second, a sequence of a hundred and forty-six separate Sehreizen. With such a fine clocked perception of an approaching enemy is identified quickly. In addition, some species with the help of in the retina of the stored proteins, the so-called crypto monochrome, presumably, the earth’s magnetic field to detect can in the Time crucial orientation advantage.

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It is becoming more and more difficult to amaze the reader with ornithological news, since most of the superlatives and BRIC-a-brac in one of the many bird books from the past years were presented. Rewarding would be to dig deeper into the research delve into what Sontag way, also makes, without, however, the often charming attempt of the scientists orders explain in Detail. His book occupied a Position between the introduction and “Special Interest”.