“Why is that Blue Jay bald?” “Why is a woodpecker digging holes in my house?” “What do I need to do to attract cardinals to my yard?” “Where did all these geese come from?” “How could bird feathers convict a murderer?”
I’ve been writing about birds for the past 30 years and have been speaking about them on the radio for more than 20 years, and from the very beginning, people have been plying me with questions. Birds are beautiful and fascinating, some easily seen in our own backyards, others worth making long trips to exotic places just to steal a glimpse. Based on a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey conducted in 2005, more than 71 million Americans watch wildlife, an 8 percent increase since 2000. During 2005 alone, these wildlife watchers spent more than $45 billion on activities described as “closely observing, photographing, and/or feeding wildlife.” Millions of people clicked on a single YouTube video showing a Neotropical bird, a Red-capped Manakin, performing its “moonwalk” courtship display. As the world grows ever more computerized and mechanized, we grow hungrier to experience nature, and perhaps especially hungry to experience birdlife.
Of all wildlife, birds are the animals we notice most in our daily lives. Even if we don’t have feeders and don’t pay much attention to nature, we can’t help but notice a cardinal’s song ringing through the air on a frosty February morning, ducks floating on the pond in the park, geese blocking passage on the golf course green. Over 700 species of wild birds breed in North America, from hummingbirds to eagles, and prairie-chickens to city pigeons. Each species is unique, and when we meet up with an unfamiliar one, or with a familiar bird doing an unfamiliar behavior, we can’t help but wonder.
Some of our encounters with birds are especially magical. Discovering a robin nest on our windowsill. Coming upon a tiny hummingbird doing his courtship flight, making deep swoops and dives, his wings buzzing mightily. Gazing at tens of thousands of cranes descending against a sunset sky to sleep on the Platte River in Nebraska. Watching from a boat as dozens of Atlantic Puffins fly overhead to their nesting sites, each one holding as many as 12 tiny fish lined up in its beak. Cooking breakfast on a picnic table at Yellowstone National Park and having Gray Jays and Steller’s Jays alight on the hot stove to share some bacon.
Whether our experiences with birds are homey or exotic, beautiful or bizarre, thrilling or even a bit unpleasant, they fill us with wonder, and with questions. With the help of scientists and resources at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I tackle some of these bird questions anew. I hope this book answers most of your questions and inspires you to spend more time experiencing birds in nature, to come up with more questions, and to discover new answers yourself!
— LAURA ERICKSON