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Sorry, again off-topic today... but have to recommend a couple of volumes:
Someone recently sent me the NY Times bestseller from last year "Wesley the Owl," the 19-year story of an injured Barn Owl raised by a Cal Tech rehabber of sorts; must reading for every bird-lover out there... and many many others as well!
By happenstance, I'm simultaneously reading "Alex and Me," Irene Pepperberg's account of her life with Alex the world-famous African Grey Parrot, newly out in paperback.
These sorts of volumes I think tell us more in-depth about birds (their true nature, their behavior, their cognition) than most $75 ornithology textbooks.
I know I'm late to the table in recommending these books, as many of you will have already read one or both of them. But if you haven't you may want to get a hold of them (...just be sure to buy a box of kleenex at the same time!)
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2 comments:
Oh, that is interesting. I used to see people from that lab (Dr. Konishi's) taking the owls out for some fresh air on the Caltech campus. (Note that the spelling preferred by Techers is Caltech, and not Cal Tech. I never knew why--perhaps to reduce confusion with Cal Poly Pomona, also a "Cal Tech".)
The friend who sent me the book also knew Dr. Konishi and his work. I, on-the-other-hand, never had any idea that such non-cosmological ;-) studies went on at Caltech, right up the road from where I went to school; would've loved to have seen those owls being worked with.
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