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The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration
Acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has returned every year since boyhood to a beloved patch of western Maine woods. What is the biology in humans of this deep-in-the-bones pull toward a particular place, and how is it related to animal homing? Heinrich explores the fascinating science chipping away at the mysteries of animal how geese imprint true visual landscape memory; how scent trails are used by many creatures, from fish to insects to amphibians, to pinpoint their home if they are displaced from it; and how the tiniest of songbirds are equipped for solar and magnetic orienteering over vast distances. Most movingly, Heinrich chronicles the spring return of a pair of sandhill cranes to their home pond in the Alaska tundra. With his trademark “marvelous, mind-altering” prose ( Los Angeles Times ), he portrays the unmistakable signs of deep psychological emotion in the newly arrived birds—and reminds us that to discount our own emotions toward home is to ignore biology itself.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2010
258 people are currently reading
2004 people want to read
About the author
Bernd Heinrich
67 books684 followersBernd Heinrich was born in Germany (April 19, 1940) and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont.
He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.
Heinrich has won numerous awards for his writing and is a world class ultra-marathon runner.
He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.
He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven, and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.
Heinrich has won numerous awards for his writing and is a world class ultra-marathon runner.
He spends much of the year at a rustic cabin that he built himself in the woods near Weld, Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
January 17, 2017
Bernd Heinrich is one of my favourite authors. He always brings new insight into the natural world, and by describing animal behaviour, illuminates our own, as we are all connected and it is only by evolution we differ.
This book starts off 10 star. I had thought that migratory birds found their way home by a sense we don't have or understand, but not so. There are many ways of homing, many different senses - navigation by the stars, by magnetism, by scent, by polarised light (maybe), by visual clues that we can't see or even know about as yet. As a sailor I steered by the stars, smelled the scent of land (especially Brazil) before we could even see it, and learned that for flat, coral islands you could see their green reflections on the undersides of clouds before the island itself was visible and I marvelled at the ways birds flying past us, sometimes landing on the deck could find their way to wherever they were bound.
Birds, insects, mammals, all of this was very interesting. But then Heinrich describes deer hunting (which he loves) in great detail. I saw what he was getting at, his 'home patch' year after year recognisable in details, 'the dead tree stump', 'the rocks by the ...' by both his hunting buddy and the deer that went there.
He talked about his family's fraught, protracted journey to the US through Germany, and how people had made the family welcome and given them a home. And later he talks of the process of building a second cabin, how long it took to (unconsciously) decide where it should be and likened it to the try-outs of birds with nesting sites. This wasn't that interesting. so it isn't the year's first 10 star book I thought it would be, but still 5 star, it's still going to be one of the best books I will read this year.
______
Written on reading the book. 1. The albatross may leave it's place of birth and soaring over the oceans, never be within site of land again for 7 or 8 years. Then it will return to where it was born to mate for life and to breed. It may fly up to 1500 Km to find a good meal of giant squid and, filling its crop return directly to its single chick. "It always knows exactly where it is." Marvellous.
2. The author described a huge underground ant city with farms of the leaves they bring in to grow the fungus they eat on, livestock farms too, with the aphids the ants milk for their sweet honeydew. Garbage disposal areas, nurseries and the queen's rooms. It made me wonder how many decisions must be taken for all to function harmoniously. They can't all be driven by instinct with no learning power at all.
This book starts off 10 star. I had thought that migratory birds found their way home by a sense we don't have or understand, but not so. There are many ways of homing, many different senses - navigation by the stars, by magnetism, by scent, by polarised light (maybe), by visual clues that we can't see or even know about as yet. As a sailor I steered by the stars, smelled the scent of land (especially Brazil) before we could even see it, and learned that for flat, coral islands you could see their green reflections on the undersides of clouds before the island itself was visible and I marvelled at the ways birds flying past us, sometimes landing on the deck could find their way to wherever they were bound.
Birds, insects, mammals, all of this was very interesting. But then Heinrich describes deer hunting (which he loves) in great detail. I saw what he was getting at, his 'home patch' year after year recognisable in details, 'the dead tree stump', 'the rocks by the ...' by both his hunting buddy and the deer that went there.
He talked about his family's fraught, protracted journey to the US through Germany, and how people had made the family welcome and given them a home. And later he talks of the process of building a second cabin, how long it took to (unconsciously) decide where it should be and likened it to the try-outs of birds with nesting sites. This wasn't that interesting. so it isn't the year's first 10 star book I thought it would be, but still 5 star, it's still going to be one of the best books I will read this year.
______
Written on reading the book. 1. The albatross may leave it's place of birth and soaring over the oceans, never be within site of land again for 7 or 8 years. Then it will return to where it was born to mate for life and to breed. It may fly up to 1500 Km to find a good meal of giant squid and, filling its crop return directly to its single chick. "It always knows exactly where it is." Marvellous.
2. The author described a huge underground ant city with farms of the leaves they bring in to grow the fungus they eat on, livestock farms too, with the aphids the ants milk for their sweet honeydew. Garbage disposal areas, nurseries and the queen's rooms. It made me wonder how many decisions must be taken for all to function harmoniously. They can't all be driven by instinct with no learning power at all.
May 11, 2019
This was another one of those all too common popular science books in which the authors use incredibly interesting, worthwhile topics as “title-bait”, presumably because they're not big enough to sell autobiographies as successfully as they would have liked to. This book, in my opinion, is a thinly veiled diary of scientist whose apparent vast knowledge and impressive credentials are not even slightly reflected in the writing. Here's a representative example of the type of writing that occurs in every single chapter:
“After just barely finishing my last-minute tasks before a trip I’d signed on to as a replacement only a week earlier, I boarded an airplane with one small piece of luggage and arrived after midnight at Suriname’s Paramaribo-Zanderij International Airport. […] The jungle was dark. I was approached by a cabdriver who, after a one-hour drive at high speed along a straight narrow road, dropped me off at a hotel where I had been instructed to appear. […] I stepped onto a silent unlit street into warm humid air. And as I contemplated what to do next, a man walked toward me. He gestured for me to follow him, and with little more ado he led me off the street and unlocked the hotel door and led me through a short dark hallway to a room. […] My eyes adjusted to the gloom and—I beheld a woman with one bare leg protruding from under a sheet on one of two narrow beds. I took the other, waiting to make introductions in the morning.”
The book is incredibly short on any actual scientific information, and the sections that don't read like diary entries are mostly full of what the author admits to be “speculations” about individual animals – these “speculations” are usually about things that we don't even need to speculate about for the most part, because there is ACTUAL research that has been done on them that the author is obviously unwilling to discuss in this book. The book is littered with rhetorical questions, that presumably get partially answered at random points throughout the book - forcing the reader to sift through all his personal diary entries in order to find them. These questions are usually real, scientifically examinable questions that he asks rhetorically as if to imply that animals are some kind of mystical fantasy creatures animals about which we can only ever speculate and never really know anything about. I understand that science definitely doesn't have the answers to everything, but to not even bother to form science-based hypotheses? To give a few examples:
“How did the cranes navigate and negotiate their five-thousand-kilometer journey from Texas or Mexico to come home to their own pingo out of thousands of others scattered throughout the vast and seemingly unending Alaskan taiga?”
“I could never retrace even my own much shorter flight route from Seattle, even if I were to return the day after having flown over it, much less a half-year later. What are the cognitive mechanisms that allow the birds to do this?”
“What would happen if, after their long-distance flying, the pair were to arrive at their home and find the bog still under snow and ice with no cranberries to be found and no voles to catch? How much can cranes afford to gamble in order to try to come on time, or even early?”
None of above questions were either answered or examined in the whole chapter that was about cranes – or should I say, specifically about Millie and Roy, who every year delight the author's friends Christy and George with their presence at the couple's lovely home in Fairbanks, Alaska. (The details the author provides about his personal life, right down to his enjoyment of grilled salmon, are really something.) Anthropological theories (courtesy of professors Nerissa Russell and Kevin McGowan) about the ritual dances that were “probably” performed “eighty-five hundred years ago at a Neolithic site in what is now Turkey”, in which the Neolithic people supposedly used crane wings as “symbolic” props, were obviously of much more interest to the author. I even managed to get more information on bird migration out of Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by Tim Birkhead (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) - and that's saying a lot considering what a horribly written book I thought that was.
I should have known what expect - the introduction was full of red flags. Whenever an author says anything along the lines of: “I realize that this smacks to some of anthropomorphism, a pejorative term that has been used for the purpose of separating us from the rest of life”, it's probably not going to be a book for me. This particular author followed this line up with: “The behaviors involved in homing include drives, emotions, and to some extent also reason.” As if anyone who takes issue with anthropomorphism (like myself) automatically doesn't believe in animal sentience (which I do).
It's books like this that make me despise anthropomorphism: they mystify the animals into non-existence by focusing on anecdotal stories of individuals instead of respecting their species as a whole. They humanise animals and deprive them of their animal nature and authentic existence. In a way, this is the ultimate human-centric approach because it reverses animal classifications – following this logic it's easy to lose sight of the biological reality that: animals are not humans, humans are animals which inevitably means that some animals and humans have a lot of similar/comparable behaviours – we should be able to acknowledge this without either engaging in anthropomorphism or going to the other extreme of denying animal sentience. This loss of touch with reality can, and often does, have serious consequences for how people view issues concerning ecology, conservation, etc. and so is not just a “harmless” different way of looking at things.
This particular author even takes it one step further by mostly concerning himself with the individual animals that he personally has had encounters with and can therefore tell anecdotes about, turning every behaviour into a spectacle. To give just a few of the many examples:
“On the evening before I would leave for my journey home, Christy and George hosted a potluck party. […] The cranes were standing, each on one leg, their heads tucked into their back feathers. […] Suddenly the person then at the scope erupted with an exclamation: “They are mating!” […] Why, I wondered, would anyone, or almost everyone, want to watch cranes mate? Why was nobody interested in watching the mating activity of the two ducks, or of the numerous redpolls?”
“One bagworm caterpillar I found on an acacia bush in Kenya had made its home by chewing off the bush’s long (about five centimeters), tough sharp spines and using its silk to glue them longitudinally into a tube around itself.”
“Looking closer, I saw a small frog half submerged in it. A frog in a nest of bubbles? It was no hallucination, though—because looking around I found a second one near it.”
“I have observed the same nest-emptying phenomenon in “my” phoebes in my shed on a couple of occasions also, and although I didn’t sit and wait to see how the babies left the nest, I did know that the cause was mites. In both of my cases the nests were crawling with hundreds, maybe thousands, of dust-particle-size mites”
“I have on occasion looked into starling nests and had dissected one nest into its component parts and counted the number and color of the feathers it contained, to contrast them with those in a nest of tree swallows in an adjacent nest box (the starling had mostly brown feathers, the swallows almost exclusively white), but I found not a single green sprig in it. ”
“A loud buzzing alerted me, and looking up I saw a large bristly fly caught in a spider web that I hadn’t known was there. […] This July 11, 2010, meeting was my first introduction to what would continue to be a housemate for the next year, and through the next summer as well. She had made her home in mine, and in honor of the fictitious spider E. B. White made famous, I called her “Charlotte.””
By far the most disturbing part of the book was the authors delight at hunting, killing and eating a dear. It's part of a worrying trend that I'm beginning to notice among extremely anthropomorphic authors. (Perhaps the most memorable being Katherine Harmon Courage , author of: Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...), in which the author presents the octopus as the most sentient of creatures and them precedes to give us her favourite octopus recipes).
“The deer came closer. Yes, small thin antlers—a young spikehorn. The best eating kind. I slowly raised my rifle, saw him over my open sights, and did the one thing that is both hard to do and easy—pulled the trigger. The deer crumpled on the spot. […] He was a beautiful animal, and I had killed him. I felt a momentary sadness. We as a species have been hunting “forever,” and the lure of the hunt is irresistible. We are all on precious borrowed time. This is real, the way it is. I took a deep breath, and the sadness of death made way for the joy of life. Here, at this spot, they melded together.
[…] I looked at my watch: 8:35 a.m. We would all three soon exult with instinctual awe and excitement, and celebrate with a sip of Scotch, before the long hard drag to bring the precious deer, our food, to the campsite. In several days, I would skin him and process every ounce of meat to steaks, roasts, hamburger, and venison jerky.”
Unbelievable. What is it about wanting to give animals human qualities that makes one want to kill and eat them? Is it just a way of trying to rationalise and justify their cognitive dissonance or is it some kind of latent cannibalistic impulse? :)
It's not enough for authors to simply say that they respect animals - their work and writing should reflect it too – this definitely wasn't the case here.
“After just barely finishing my last-minute tasks before a trip I’d signed on to as a replacement only a week earlier, I boarded an airplane with one small piece of luggage and arrived after midnight at Suriname’s Paramaribo-Zanderij International Airport. […] The jungle was dark. I was approached by a cabdriver who, after a one-hour drive at high speed along a straight narrow road, dropped me off at a hotel where I had been instructed to appear. […] I stepped onto a silent unlit street into warm humid air. And as I contemplated what to do next, a man walked toward me. He gestured for me to follow him, and with little more ado he led me off the street and unlocked the hotel door and led me through a short dark hallway to a room. […] My eyes adjusted to the gloom and—I beheld a woman with one bare leg protruding from under a sheet on one of two narrow beds. I took the other, waiting to make introductions in the morning.”
The book is incredibly short on any actual scientific information, and the sections that don't read like diary entries are mostly full of what the author admits to be “speculations” about individual animals – these “speculations” are usually about things that we don't even need to speculate about for the most part, because there is ACTUAL research that has been done on them that the author is obviously unwilling to discuss in this book. The book is littered with rhetorical questions, that presumably get partially answered at random points throughout the book - forcing the reader to sift through all his personal diary entries in order to find them. These questions are usually real, scientifically examinable questions that he asks rhetorically as if to imply that animals are some kind of mystical fantasy creatures animals about which we can only ever speculate and never really know anything about. I understand that science definitely doesn't have the answers to everything, but to not even bother to form science-based hypotheses? To give a few examples:
“How did the cranes navigate and negotiate their five-thousand-kilometer journey from Texas or Mexico to come home to their own pingo out of thousands of others scattered throughout the vast and seemingly unending Alaskan taiga?”
“I could never retrace even my own much shorter flight route from Seattle, even if I were to return the day after having flown over it, much less a half-year later. What are the cognitive mechanisms that allow the birds to do this?”
“What would happen if, after their long-distance flying, the pair were to arrive at their home and find the bog still under snow and ice with no cranberries to be found and no voles to catch? How much can cranes afford to gamble in order to try to come on time, or even early?”
None of above questions were either answered or examined in the whole chapter that was about cranes – or should I say, specifically about Millie and Roy, who every year delight the author's friends Christy and George with their presence at the couple's lovely home in Fairbanks, Alaska. (The details the author provides about his personal life, right down to his enjoyment of grilled salmon, are really something.) Anthropological theories (courtesy of professors Nerissa Russell and Kevin McGowan) about the ritual dances that were “probably” performed “eighty-five hundred years ago at a Neolithic site in what is now Turkey”, in which the Neolithic people supposedly used crane wings as “symbolic” props, were obviously of much more interest to the author. I even managed to get more information on bird migration out of Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by Tim Birkhead (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) - and that's saying a lot considering what a horribly written book I thought that was.
I should have known what expect - the introduction was full of red flags. Whenever an author says anything along the lines of: “I realize that this smacks to some of anthropomorphism, a pejorative term that has been used for the purpose of separating us from the rest of life”, it's probably not going to be a book for me. This particular author followed this line up with: “The behaviors involved in homing include drives, emotions, and to some extent also reason.” As if anyone who takes issue with anthropomorphism (like myself) automatically doesn't believe in animal sentience (which I do).
It's books like this that make me despise anthropomorphism: they mystify the animals into non-existence by focusing on anecdotal stories of individuals instead of respecting their species as a whole. They humanise animals and deprive them of their animal nature and authentic existence. In a way, this is the ultimate human-centric approach because it reverses animal classifications – following this logic it's easy to lose sight of the biological reality that: animals are not humans, humans are animals which inevitably means that some animals and humans have a lot of similar/comparable behaviours – we should be able to acknowledge this without either engaging in anthropomorphism or going to the other extreme of denying animal sentience. This loss of touch with reality can, and often does, have serious consequences for how people view issues concerning ecology, conservation, etc. and so is not just a “harmless” different way of looking at things.
This particular author even takes it one step further by mostly concerning himself with the individual animals that he personally has had encounters with and can therefore tell anecdotes about, turning every behaviour into a spectacle. To give just a few of the many examples:
“On the evening before I would leave for my journey home, Christy and George hosted a potluck party. […] The cranes were standing, each on one leg, their heads tucked into their back feathers. […] Suddenly the person then at the scope erupted with an exclamation: “They are mating!” […] Why, I wondered, would anyone, or almost everyone, want to watch cranes mate? Why was nobody interested in watching the mating activity of the two ducks, or of the numerous redpolls?”
“One bagworm caterpillar I found on an acacia bush in Kenya had made its home by chewing off the bush’s long (about five centimeters), tough sharp spines and using its silk to glue them longitudinally into a tube around itself.”
“Looking closer, I saw a small frog half submerged in it. A frog in a nest of bubbles? It was no hallucination, though—because looking around I found a second one near it.”
“I have observed the same nest-emptying phenomenon in “my” phoebes in my shed on a couple of occasions also, and although I didn’t sit and wait to see how the babies left the nest, I did know that the cause was mites. In both of my cases the nests were crawling with hundreds, maybe thousands, of dust-particle-size mites”
“I have on occasion looked into starling nests and had dissected one nest into its component parts and counted the number and color of the feathers it contained, to contrast them with those in a nest of tree swallows in an adjacent nest box (the starling had mostly brown feathers, the swallows almost exclusively white), but I found not a single green sprig in it. ”
“A loud buzzing alerted me, and looking up I saw a large bristly fly caught in a spider web that I hadn’t known was there. […] This July 11, 2010, meeting was my first introduction to what would continue to be a housemate for the next year, and through the next summer as well. She had made her home in mine, and in honor of the fictitious spider E. B. White made famous, I called her “Charlotte.””
By far the most disturbing part of the book was the authors delight at hunting, killing and eating a dear. It's part of a worrying trend that I'm beginning to notice among extremely anthropomorphic authors. (Perhaps the most memorable being Katherine Harmon Courage , author of: Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...), in which the author presents the octopus as the most sentient of creatures and them precedes to give us her favourite octopus recipes).
“The deer came closer. Yes, small thin antlers—a young spikehorn. The best eating kind. I slowly raised my rifle, saw him over my open sights, and did the one thing that is both hard to do and easy—pulled the trigger. The deer crumpled on the spot. […] He was a beautiful animal, and I had killed him. I felt a momentary sadness. We as a species have been hunting “forever,” and the lure of the hunt is irresistible. We are all on precious borrowed time. This is real, the way it is. I took a deep breath, and the sadness of death made way for the joy of life. Here, at this spot, they melded together.
[…] I looked at my watch: 8:35 a.m. We would all three soon exult with instinctual awe and excitement, and celebrate with a sip of Scotch, before the long hard drag to bring the precious deer, our food, to the campsite. In several days, I would skin him and process every ounce of meat to steaks, roasts, hamburger, and venison jerky.”
Unbelievable. What is it about wanting to give animals human qualities that makes one want to kill and eat them? Is it just a way of trying to rationalise and justify their cognitive dissonance or is it some kind of latent cannibalistic impulse? :)
It's not enough for authors to simply say that they respect animals - their work and writing should reflect it too – this definitely wasn't the case here.
March 30, 2014
From the title of Bernd Heinrich’s new book, The Homing Instinct, I was expecting a scientific exploration of the migratory behaviors of birds and other creatures that embark on long journeys to and from their breeding grounds, but I found, along with science, an introspective look into the nature and the need to return home. Mixed in with the science, both the author’s own research and that of other scientists, I discovered a beautifully written book consisting of many stories and observations, giving many parts of the book the feel of a memoir. Present throughout is the theme, ‘What is home?’ and ‘Why do all creatures, including humans, feel that pull to return to the place they are from?’.
The Homing Instinct is divided into three sections, the first part delving into homing behavior using the examples of Sandhill Cranes, Monarch butterflies and honey bees to name a few, and their remarkable ability to navigate by the sun and stars, recognize landmarks and arrive at their destination without getting lost. In the second part the author discusses homemaking behavior: types of homes or nests and how to choose the spot, and not only for the animals, this also applies to humans and he uses the example of his own family home and land in the woods of western Maine. In the third part, herding behaving and homing to each other rather than a place is discussed.
There is much to like about Heinrich’s approachable and engaging writing style, and enjoyable stories and anecdotes. In one of my favorite chapters we learn about a web orb spider that made her home inside his home. For two summers he observed and chronicled her behavior, even naming her Charlotte, and in the end discovered that her actions did not follow established spider lore. Another favorite was the story of an old apple tree that he dated to 1790 and his research into the mysterious origin of the tree. Of much interest to me was the sad tale of the now extinct Passenger Pigeon, a victim of man, but also of its own biology and its need to return in enormous size groups to only a few nesting grounds, making it easy prey for hunters.
In both animals and humans, we all yearn to return to that place called home, the place where we feel we belong. Highly recommended, not only for those who enjoy nature, but anyone who wants to better understand our need to return to our roots.
The Homing Instinct is divided into three sections, the first part delving into homing behavior using the examples of Sandhill Cranes, Monarch butterflies and honey bees to name a few, and their remarkable ability to navigate by the sun and stars, recognize landmarks and arrive at their destination without getting lost. In the second part the author discusses homemaking behavior: types of homes or nests and how to choose the spot, and not only for the animals, this also applies to humans and he uses the example of his own family home and land in the woods of western Maine. In the third part, herding behaving and homing to each other rather than a place is discussed.
There is much to like about Heinrich’s approachable and engaging writing style, and enjoyable stories and anecdotes. In one of my favorite chapters we learn about a web orb spider that made her home inside his home. For two summers he observed and chronicled her behavior, even naming her Charlotte, and in the end discovered that her actions did not follow established spider lore. Another favorite was the story of an old apple tree that he dated to 1790 and his research into the mysterious origin of the tree. Of much interest to me was the sad tale of the now extinct Passenger Pigeon, a victim of man, but also of its own biology and its need to return in enormous size groups to only a few nesting grounds, making it easy prey for hunters.
In both animals and humans, we all yearn to return to that place called home, the place where we feel we belong. Highly recommended, not only for those who enjoy nature, but anyone who wants to better understand our need to return to our roots.
July 16, 2020
By half way through, This book had managed to take a topic that is amazing and scientifically mysterious and make it banal and boring.
not-interested
May 18, 2019Here's the review that put this one on the far back burner, for me:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So, not the book I want to read, I don't think.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So, not the book I want to read, I don't think.
December 2, 2017
Fact: my last name is name of a tiny village in southern India where storks and herons migrate post monsoon season. When I visited this village several years ago, the villagers mention how the birds move around the area with familiarity. In this book, Heinrich wonders over the necessity of migration, the pull the birds and insects seem to have to a place, to a season. Its a very calming read as Heinrich gently unfolds one of the most natural and mesmerizing aspects of birds.
August 7, 2015
I had high hopes for this from the title but was sorely disappointed. A mishmash of information, presented poorly. The autobiographical chapters were self-indulgent and the hunting one was just appalling. Some of the wildlife writing was good but there just wasn't enough of it, which is why ultimately it was such a let down.
November 29, 2020
Bernd Heinrich is in the very top tier of most knowledgeable naturalists writing today. He is a great observer of the natural world around him. I've personally been out walking with him; he astounded me. (The purpose of the visit was to get him to see whales, a first for him; mission accomplished.) Anyway, this book is about the widespread instinct--including among humans--to have a sense of home, a home base, and a desire and ability to return "home." It is not a book about migration per se. A deeper exploration of neural and psychological mechanisms of homing and of migration would, for me, have added a fifth star. But then the book would have had to be 600 pages long.
March 24, 2016
3.5 stars. I love Heinrich's writing about the natural world and the astonishing feats animals perform in finding and making home. I wish he had spent more than a page contemplating our own place in the broader scheme of mass extinctions of gregarious species--passenger pigeons, the Colorado locust, etc. He hints at problems he thinks we will face as a species, but leaves all the work to the reader to draw the parallels and conclusions. Otherwise a fascinating look at how various species define Home and how they've adapted to create and maintain it.
June 4, 2024
This author is a funky little guy.
February 14, 2019
I like his writing style and his insights, and this book is good for people who don't want a deep dive into the evolutionary science & can appreciate that what Heinrich is writing is both metaphorical AND scientific.
It has a few chapters that don't mesh well with the rest of the book, as though written separately (as I assume many of them were) and then an editor said to add it here. The hunting chapter is one of those--it fits, sort of, but not seamlessly, as some of the other essays do.
It has a few chapters that don't mesh well with the rest of the book, as though written separately (as I assume many of them were) and then an editor said to add it here. The hunting chapter is one of those--it fits, sort of, but not seamlessly, as some of the other essays do.
October 31, 2023
Een aantal hoofdstukken en passages echt wel interessant, maar eerlijk gezegd ben ik (vooral) ook blij dat ik er doorheen ben... Gaat ook veel over eigen ervaringen van de auteur (vooral het tweede deel van het boek), daar had ik minder mee en vond ik ook niet helemaal passen bij de rest van het boek.
2,5⭐
2,5⭐
December 12, 2020
Not a particularly coherent one of his books, but the good chapters were quite good, as usual. It's always a shame no biologist can resist questionably mulling over issues of human genetics and evolution.
November 27, 2022
there are some nice ideas here, but i found this book a little too aimless for my taste. and i wish ideas about settlerhood were engaged with more critically in the context of settler colonialism, and that the epigraphs for each chapter were from more diverse sources.
November 7, 2015
Finally! It took me a while to get through this, but I was distracted, between big life events and many of the other books I want to read, have started to read, or finished reading since my last post. This is the first Bernd Heinrich book for me to read; I had been wanting to read something by him for a while. At first I wasn’t sure, but I think this was a good one to start with. It is a collection of loosely related pieces. About half of the book is about the science of migration, and the other approximate half is personal memoir, pertaining to the author’s own homing instinct. The timing proved to be appropriate for me, in a symbolic way: the day I began reading, and the day I finished, I was away from home, but in between, and for over a year now I have been at home and wanting to move on. However, I love my home, and understand Heinrich’s feelings about the Maine woods he grew up in.
So many subjects are covered in this book, and maybe it tries to cover too much. As a whole, it could be more cohesive, but it is well written and any chapter is enjoyable on its own. How does he decide what to include?, I found myself wondering. His familiarity with so many organisms and the science pertaining to them serves this book well. The sketches are also a nice supplement to the text.
The bird on the cover, for example, is a bar-tailed godwit, which can fly across the Pacific Ocean non-stop! It does this after nesting in Alaska, flying to Australia or New Zealand. Flying from there to Alaska, it makes a few stops, and in these flights changes its body weight by 2-3 times. This is just one of the many profiles crammed into the book. All are fun to read. Each species is unique in its homing “instinct” and he acknowledges this. Sandhill cranes are the opener, and bees buzz among many pages. I didn’t know there were no bees in North America until the colonists brought them here in the early-mid 1600s. To give a sense of what the author’s personality might be like, he counted over 500 of one species of insect while jogging (as recorded in a journal of his in 1985). Also, later in the book he compares his own physiology to that of a bee.
The chapter “By the Sun, Stars, and Magnetic Compass” seemed more organized and flows better, though maybe I was more focused when reading it. In general I tend to enjoy books more if I can read them in short periods of time with extended “sessions”. Reading a little bit here and there (for the first time) is usually less pleasant, so that may bias my reviewing.
“Home-making in Suriname” was only loosely related to the theme of the book, but is a good stand-alone travel adventure that found its home in this text and comes away with a nice message. The setting reminded me of “The Lost Steps” by Alejo Carpentier, for better or worse, and it is exciting to read about a challenging excursion into one of the few still-pristine places. In the last chapter of the second section about how communal homes first arose, the mentioned hypothetical speculation happened around the time the expected processes were observed in real species. Perhaps this inspired him to speculate on the unpleasant topic of population control of the Homo genus.
In one of the ‘personal’ chapters at the cabin in the woods, there is a real-life Charlotte the spider. Her story is drawn largely from the author’s journal, where it is evident that he is a keen observer of his wild visitors and their behavior. This is in addition to the experiments of others – some simple, some quite clever – that spice up the book. His own backyard home experiments with Chestnut trees are a demonstration of boundaries by seed dispersal, and are a nice conservation effort. Heinrich’s relationship with his nephew is a good one, and brings a real human element to this interesting collection of natural histories. The book’s epilogue is like a short chapter, a biograph, the family’s connection to the land and to other people there. I can say that I got a few interesting facts out of this read, and at a less busy time of my life I look forward to reading more of the author’s works.
Note: this book was provided through Net Galley, and my review also appears on my blog (http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/).
So many subjects are covered in this book, and maybe it tries to cover too much. As a whole, it could be more cohesive, but it is well written and any chapter is enjoyable on its own. How does he decide what to include?, I found myself wondering. His familiarity with so many organisms and the science pertaining to them serves this book well. The sketches are also a nice supplement to the text.
The bird on the cover, for example, is a bar-tailed godwit, which can fly across the Pacific Ocean non-stop! It does this after nesting in Alaska, flying to Australia or New Zealand. Flying from there to Alaska, it makes a few stops, and in these flights changes its body weight by 2-3 times. This is just one of the many profiles crammed into the book. All are fun to read. Each species is unique in its homing “instinct” and he acknowledges this. Sandhill cranes are the opener, and bees buzz among many pages. I didn’t know there were no bees in North America until the colonists brought them here in the early-mid 1600s. To give a sense of what the author’s personality might be like, he counted over 500 of one species of insect while jogging (as recorded in a journal of his in 1985). Also, later in the book he compares his own physiology to that of a bee.
The chapter “By the Sun, Stars, and Magnetic Compass” seemed more organized and flows better, though maybe I was more focused when reading it. In general I tend to enjoy books more if I can read them in short periods of time with extended “sessions”. Reading a little bit here and there (for the first time) is usually less pleasant, so that may bias my reviewing.
“Home-making in Suriname” was only loosely related to the theme of the book, but is a good stand-alone travel adventure that found its home in this text and comes away with a nice message. The setting reminded me of “The Lost Steps” by Alejo Carpentier, for better or worse, and it is exciting to read about a challenging excursion into one of the few still-pristine places. In the last chapter of the second section about how communal homes first arose, the mentioned hypothetical speculation happened around the time the expected processes were observed in real species. Perhaps this inspired him to speculate on the unpleasant topic of population control of the Homo genus.
In one of the ‘personal’ chapters at the cabin in the woods, there is a real-life Charlotte the spider. Her story is drawn largely from the author’s journal, where it is evident that he is a keen observer of his wild visitors and their behavior. This is in addition to the experiments of others – some simple, some quite clever – that spice up the book. His own backyard home experiments with Chestnut trees are a demonstration of boundaries by seed dispersal, and are a nice conservation effort. Heinrich’s relationship with his nephew is a good one, and brings a real human element to this interesting collection of natural histories. The book’s epilogue is like a short chapter, a biograph, the family’s connection to the land and to other people there. I can say that I got a few interesting facts out of this read, and at a less busy time of my life I look forward to reading more of the author’s works.
Note: this book was provided through Net Galley, and my review also appears on my blog (http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/).
June 25, 2018
I’ve always been fascinated by the homing instinct, and particularly the history of science being unable to completely explain how it works. So I appreciated the opportunity to read Heinrich’s new book all about the homing instinct.
And it is all about the homing instinct. Quite a lot, even for a reader so interested in the subject. Birds, animals, insects, amphibians, humans are all included. I appreciate and agree with his predicating his descriptions of the creatures with, “I realize that this smacks to some of anthropomorphism, a pejorative term that has been used for the purpose of separating us from the rest of life.” However, many of the homing instincts he attributes to humans feels a bit sentimentalized, more of the spiritual than the literal and physical. I’m perfectly accepting of attributing emotion and empathy to animals but then to attribute most of the whole of homing motivations in human to these sentiments feels too biased for me.
Heinrich Heinrich's writing is comfortably both scientific and intimate. He writes of studies and scientific observations, but many of those observations are his own. I enjoyed Heinrich's black and white sketches of the insects and animals he observed scattered throughout the book, which made it feel even more personal, like a journal. A reader more scientifically focused may not appreciate this, but this is why I like writers of Heinrich's ilk. I'm attracted to these sorts of books because of the scientific elements but am often better engaged by autobiographical frosting. I never fully understand (especially when I kind of feel this way myself), when a reviewer writes that they feel that a book was too long; it is as long as it is because the author felt the included material was important. But sometimes maybe they feel longer when the subject is so throughly exhausted that it leaves the reader exhausted?
I'm thankful that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt gave me the opportunity to explore this book. I've always wanted to read Heinrich's Mind of the Raven, because of my fascination with all things corvid, and now I'm even more anxious to do so (though I will when I'm ready to be fully immersed in the subject!)
And it is all about the homing instinct. Quite a lot, even for a reader so interested in the subject. Birds, animals, insects, amphibians, humans are all included. I appreciate and agree with his predicating his descriptions of the creatures with, “I realize that this smacks to some of anthropomorphism, a pejorative term that has been used for the purpose of separating us from the rest of life.” However, many of the homing instincts he attributes to humans feels a bit sentimentalized, more of the spiritual than the literal and physical. I’m perfectly accepting of attributing emotion and empathy to animals but then to attribute most of the whole of homing motivations in human to these sentiments feels too biased for me.
Heinrich Heinrich's writing is comfortably both scientific and intimate. He writes of studies and scientific observations, but many of those observations are his own. I enjoyed Heinrich's black and white sketches of the insects and animals he observed scattered throughout the book, which made it feel even more personal, like a journal. A reader more scientifically focused may not appreciate this, but this is why I like writers of Heinrich's ilk. I'm attracted to these sorts of books because of the scientific elements but am often better engaged by autobiographical frosting. I never fully understand (especially when I kind of feel this way myself), when a reviewer writes that they feel that a book was too long; it is as long as it is because the author felt the included material was important. But sometimes maybe they feel longer when the subject is so throughly exhausted that it leaves the reader exhausted?
I'm thankful that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt gave me the opportunity to explore this book. I've always wanted to read Heinrich's Mind of the Raven, because of my fascination with all things corvid, and now I'm even more anxious to do so (though I will when I'm ready to be fully immersed in the subject!)
March 13, 2014
Animal behavior: Migration and homing instincts
This is an interesting book by Bernd Heinrich, a renowned scholar that discusses interesting facts about animal migration and their attachments for their habitats. The book is largely focused on behavior with no discussion of genetics as it relates to the behavior, and no prior knowledge of biology is required to understand and appreciate this book.
Homemaking is practiced by animals regardless of their position in the evolutionary ladder. It is especially important for rearing young until they are ready to face challenges of the world. It is most prominently displayed among insects and birds but also in some mammals, spiders, crustaceans, fish and some reptiles. Many examples are discussed, for example, Loons in Northern Lakes fight viciously every spring for the possession of the only spot to nest on a Beaver lodge and where only one pair stays and the others must go quite far to find any place at all. Rules change when nest site is no longer arbitrary and becomes unique and valuable commodity. It may be built at a great cost and skill in which case it becomes a nuptial offering of competing males. Thus in weaverbirds and woodpeckers, males do most of the site preparation and female inspects it and chooses the best site and the male who built it. It is all the matter of costs and benefits of leaving verses staying and fighting.
What knowledge birds have that they fly nonstop all day and all night on the wing and losing significant body weight. Albatross is like sea turtles, long lived wanderers with fixed home positions. Young albatrosses fly an average distance of 84,000 miles a year and have a genetically fixed dispersal direction but always return home for breeding.
The take home message from this book is that all animals have the basic instincts for their homes just like humans. Animal behavior is also discussed on many cable programs such as; Nat Geo, Discovery channel, Science channel, etc., but it is nice to read this book because this book has lot more materials than a television show. I recommend this book to anyone interested in animal behavior.
This is an interesting book by Bernd Heinrich, a renowned scholar that discusses interesting facts about animal migration and their attachments for their habitats. The book is largely focused on behavior with no discussion of genetics as it relates to the behavior, and no prior knowledge of biology is required to understand and appreciate this book.
Homemaking is practiced by animals regardless of their position in the evolutionary ladder. It is especially important for rearing young until they are ready to face challenges of the world. It is most prominently displayed among insects and birds but also in some mammals, spiders, crustaceans, fish and some reptiles. Many examples are discussed, for example, Loons in Northern Lakes fight viciously every spring for the possession of the only spot to nest on a Beaver lodge and where only one pair stays and the others must go quite far to find any place at all. Rules change when nest site is no longer arbitrary and becomes unique and valuable commodity. It may be built at a great cost and skill in which case it becomes a nuptial offering of competing males. Thus in weaverbirds and woodpeckers, males do most of the site preparation and female inspects it and chooses the best site and the male who built it. It is all the matter of costs and benefits of leaving verses staying and fighting.
What knowledge birds have that they fly nonstop all day and all night on the wing and losing significant body weight. Albatross is like sea turtles, long lived wanderers with fixed home positions. Young albatrosses fly an average distance of 84,000 miles a year and have a genetically fixed dispersal direction but always return home for breeding.
The take home message from this book is that all animals have the basic instincts for their homes just like humans. Animal behavior is also discussed on many cable programs such as; Nat Geo, Discovery channel, Science channel, etc., but it is nice to read this book because this book has lot more materials than a television show. I recommend this book to anyone interested in animal behavior.
March 20, 2022
“There is a period near the beginning of every man’s life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.” E. B. Wright
A wonderfully written book on the mystery of migration with special focus on the flyers and swimmers in the western hemisphere. Just about every method you could possibly imagine is used to bring our wild friends home from imprinted genetics, use of the world magnetic field, the stars, landmarks, the sun, the moon, even scent. You name it, nature uses it. And still much is still unknown. The book describes the process of experimentation quite thoroughly (With bees or monarch butterflies for example, we basically trick them to see how they react). It's all very fascinating.
The second half of the book is more autobiographical and personal in nature which I wasn't expecting. Emphasis shifts to his home state of Maine and the spider in his ceiling, the hunting season, the origin of a long forgotten tree, and even a glimpse of how he and his sister were effectively abandoned by their parents.
I enjoyed this book. It was my first time reading Henrich but hopefully not my last. He’s a sincere ecologist without being a sentimentalist or a political opinionist. A blessing in this day and age. I read it on a kindle which does not let itself to graphics normally but the sketches worked quite well in this instance, encouraging the reader to research more on their own. Very good 5 stars.
April 20, 2024
3.25 stars
Not just about birds, but butterflies, bees, insects, other critters, humans, even trees… and home. What makes a home and compels critters to create that home and either migrate to/from or just want to “cocoon” and stay there?
I found some of the info more interesting than others. Of course, it started off with birds and other critters that migrate and how they manage to find their way to/from. But the book expands far beyond, even speculating on humans and home. I have to agree with others that I could have done without the hunting chapter. Even though this wasn’t an audio book, I did lose interest at times, though, which is why the rating somewhere between “ok” and “good” for me.
Not just about birds, but butterflies, bees, insects, other critters, humans, even trees… and home. What makes a home and compels critters to create that home and either migrate to/from or just want to “cocoon” and stay there?
I found some of the info more interesting than others. Of course, it started off with birds and other critters that migrate and how they manage to find their way to/from. But the book expands far beyond, even speculating on humans and home. I have to agree with others that I could have done without the hunting chapter. Even though this wasn’t an audio book, I did lose interest at times, though, which is why the rating somewhere between “ok” and “good” for me.
October 9, 2020
I picked out this book randomly from available books on the LIBBY app. After beginning at a slow leisurely pace, I became increasingly fascinated. It's a lovely book about our natural environment packed with fascinating details of the lives of spiders, honeybees, bees, deer and humans. I'm going to try some of his many other titles.
March 14, 2020
On par with almost all of his books (only the tree book had me nodding off, but I'm not as big a fan of reading about trees), I felt myself disappointed each time I had to put it down. Mr. Heinrich has maintained his engaging style of storytelling mingled with scientific research & information.
September 7, 2025
Bernd Heinrich is an excellent writer who teaches readers about many aspects of zoology. In this book he discusses migration in a host of species and at different parts of history. It is a great book and very informative.
November 19, 2016
The world has many amazing stories and this book tells a good one about the travels of birds, fish, bees and more.
October 2, 2021
Let me start by saying I am a huge Heinrich fan. This book is a departure from his previous works that are more specific to a topic in the natural world. A good portion of it is still about what he observes in the Maine woods, which has become familiar to his readers.
In some ways it reminds me of Oliver Sacks' "Oaxaca Journal" or "On the Move" or "The Island of the Colorblind", all of which are two degrees of separation from neuroscience! They did more to expose Sacks' fascinating mind than teach us about something specific.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the facts, but it's also nice to just hear great minds theorize, and share their undeveloped thoughts. Even watching them piece things together and shape them into something that resembles the whole is a gift. They teach us how to speculate. They do it with such rigor and strength of purpose. He says in his intro "I have tried to speculate freely, and I hope that this will open discussion, not close it." Open, he did!
Heinrich weaves a lot of his own personal experiments and experiences into the factual storytelling about homing and the migration of species. He covers a lot of ground from insects to fish to birds to animals. This book is meaningful because it exposes the thoughts of a man who has lived this world for many decades; and who has converted a lot of those thoughts to actions!
The book leaves something to be desired in certain scores (like with the portions about human migration), but it's also indicative of how far scientists and anthropologists have come in understanding this topic. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari was equally incomplete and compelling. Maybe reading the thoughts of many authors on this subject will get us closer to the real truth.
His experiments with the spider are my most favorite part of the book! I am also now eager to pick up a book about bees!
In some ways it reminds me of Oliver Sacks' "Oaxaca Journal" or "On the Move" or "The Island of the Colorblind", all of which are two degrees of separation from neuroscience! They did more to expose Sacks' fascinating mind than teach us about something specific.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the facts, but it's also nice to just hear great minds theorize, and share their undeveloped thoughts. Even watching them piece things together and shape them into something that resembles the whole is a gift. They teach us how to speculate. They do it with such rigor and strength of purpose. He says in his intro "I have tried to speculate freely, and I hope that this will open discussion, not close it." Open, he did!
Heinrich weaves a lot of his own personal experiments and experiences into the factual storytelling about homing and the migration of species. He covers a lot of ground from insects to fish to birds to animals. This book is meaningful because it exposes the thoughts of a man who has lived this world for many decades; and who has converted a lot of those thoughts to actions!
The book leaves something to be desired in certain scores (like with the portions about human migration), but it's also indicative of how far scientists and anthropologists have come in understanding this topic. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari was equally incomplete and compelling. Maybe reading the thoughts of many authors on this subject will get us closer to the real truth.
His experiments with the spider are my most favorite part of the book! I am also now eager to pick up a book about bees!
February 25, 2024
There's some really interesting stuff in here, but I can't honestly say that it does what it says on the tin - the book's a little muddled, as if it doesn't quite know what it wants to be.
The subtitle, The Story and Science of Migration, is true for the first third of the book. It's a fascinating look at how scientists learned about migration, primarily through the lens of experiments on various animals. This is the type of thing that really appeals to me - not just knowing how or why, but understanding the process by which that how or why is obtained. Then migration gets dropped almost entirely: the second third is more about how various animals construct their homes, from birds to beavers to termites. Again, really interesting, and if it's moved away from the title it's still solidly a pop science book.
Then comes the final third, where the whole thing turns into a memoir, with chapter after chapter of Heinrich pottering about on his farm, or going deer hunting, or pondering the use of fire and how it, over the course of human history, contributed to the development of home. The experiments, and to a lesser extent the science, drops out entirely, and it's more straight nature writing than pop science, in that it primarily explores Heinrich's relationship with his own home. I'm not criticising the writing - I genuinely enjoyed reading this section. I could have read a whole book like this from him! But it's not the book I started reading, and I can't help but think that - interesting as the separate parts are - the book as a whole veered off track, and never really had a solid sense of its own identity.
The subtitle, The Story and Science of Migration, is true for the first third of the book. It's a fascinating look at how scientists learned about migration, primarily through the lens of experiments on various animals. This is the type of thing that really appeals to me - not just knowing how or why, but understanding the process by which that how or why is obtained. Then migration gets dropped almost entirely: the second third is more about how various animals construct their homes, from birds to beavers to termites. Again, really interesting, and if it's moved away from the title it's still solidly a pop science book.
Then comes the final third, where the whole thing turns into a memoir, with chapter after chapter of Heinrich pottering about on his farm, or going deer hunting, or pondering the use of fire and how it, over the course of human history, contributed to the development of home. The experiments, and to a lesser extent the science, drops out entirely, and it's more straight nature writing than pop science, in that it primarily explores Heinrich's relationship with his own home. I'm not criticising the writing - I genuinely enjoyed reading this section. I could have read a whole book like this from him! But it's not the book I started reading, and I can't help but think that - interesting as the separate parts are - the book as a whole veered off track, and never really had a solid sense of its own identity.
November 23, 2017
Rating it 3.5
I was expecting to understand more thoroughly the mechanisms that drive the homing instincts of animals, so 20 minutes after beginning the book, I was disappointed. But I kept reading and suddenly I realized that I was holding a book that offered something better. It seems that we are still unraveling the secrets of homing, and what Heinrich gives us are example after example of homing in action. Observations galore, experiments, and wonderful sketches abound through the book. I was able to just relax and stroll through the book, enjoying the descriptions as a layperson with an inquisitive mind. Sometimes there is TMI and one has to struggle to grasp the fine points (e.g., molecular structure or chemical reactions) - That is not the case here: the reader is left with that sense of wonderment about life forces that we had when we first started asking “why? how? what?” as kids and young adults.
Speaking of wonderment, it boggles my mind that they can use tiny tracking devices like transponders, as well as tags, on small songbirds, butterflies and honeybees. These creatures fly SO far, sometimes nonstop, and toting extra baggage must certainly consume calories, no matter how lightweight the baggage.
I was expecting to understand more thoroughly the mechanisms that drive the homing instincts of animals, so 20 minutes after beginning the book, I was disappointed. But I kept reading and suddenly I realized that I was holding a book that offered something better. It seems that we are still unraveling the secrets of homing, and what Heinrich gives us are example after example of homing in action. Observations galore, experiments, and wonderful sketches abound through the book. I was able to just relax and stroll through the book, enjoying the descriptions as a layperson with an inquisitive mind. Sometimes there is TMI and one has to struggle to grasp the fine points (e.g., molecular structure or chemical reactions) - That is not the case here: the reader is left with that sense of wonderment about life forces that we had when we first started asking “why? how? what?” as kids and young adults.
Speaking of wonderment, it boggles my mind that they can use tiny tracking devices like transponders, as well as tags, on small songbirds, butterflies and honeybees. These creatures fly SO far, sometimes nonstop, and toting extra baggage must certainly consume calories, no matter how lightweight the baggage.
June 8, 2021
This book is a mix of the author's fieldwork observations, work/science from other sources, and a lot of personal memoir. The title doesn't really fit the contents, but the book is largely about what home is to a variety of animals - insects, birds, fish, and various mammals, including humans. It's an interesting topic, and I did learn a lot. His style is folksy, he's a keen observer of nature, and he lives in harmony with the land as much as possible. He pulls things together at the end into concern for what humans have done to the earth and what it may mean for the earth's future. So, I liked all that.
However, I would not recommend the book for vegetarians (like me) or people who believe in animal rights. He refers to lots of animal experimentation (including what I would consider torture), has a long chapter glorifying his love of hunting, and has no qualms about hurting and killing animals to answer his own questions about them. In one of the last chapters, about how passenger pigeons became extinct , I learned the origin of the term "stool pigeon" - horrible.
However, I would not recommend the book for vegetarians (like me) or people who believe in animal rights. He refers to lots of animal experimentation (including what I would consider torture), has a long chapter glorifying his love of hunting, and has no qualms about hurting and killing animals to answer his own questions about them. In one of the last chapters, about how passenger pigeons became extinct , I learned the origin of the term "stool pigeon" - horrible.
August 1, 2017
Caleb's work has book club and this was the first book.
I really enjoyed lots of it, from albatross to bees to monarchs to godwits and so much more, the migration and making of homes was discussed and it is all very interesting.
Another in the club and I were a little unsure if this is a popular book about science (sometimes discussing animal's emotion would fall here) or a book 'preaching to the choir' of scientists (some of his deeper analysis of research would fit here).
It was also part memoir, part philosophizing on home and movement. I do like that he said all we learn about the nature world creates more questions about what we don't yet know. And that as humans we are homebodies who also feel the need to go and explore (Moana anyone? "I am a girl who loves my island, I love the sea, it calls me").
I enjoyed reading it though sometimes it helped me fall asleep and it was a good time to ponder these things as we are now created a new home.
I really enjoyed lots of it, from albatross to bees to monarchs to godwits and so much more, the migration and making of homes was discussed and it is all very interesting.
Another in the club and I were a little unsure if this is a popular book about science (sometimes discussing animal's emotion would fall here) or a book 'preaching to the choir' of scientists (some of his deeper analysis of research would fit here).
It was also part memoir, part philosophizing on home and movement. I do like that he said all we learn about the nature world creates more questions about what we don't yet know. And that as humans we are homebodies who also feel the need to go and explore (Moana anyone? "I am a girl who loves my island, I love the sea, it calls me").
I enjoyed reading it though sometimes it helped me fall asleep and it was a good time to ponder these things as we are now created a new home.
November 26, 2018
Heinrich has long been a favorite natural history writer of mine. His way of balancing personal anecdotes with scientific observations and literature completely appeals to my own way of seeing the natural world, and the longer I live in New England, the closer I feel to his perspective. This was a truly lovely volume, full of wonderous facts, reasonable speculation, and poetic musings about how different animals (including us) conceptualize their homes. I am a highly "homing" creature, so this was just spot-on for me. My only complaint was that the rhythm of this book was not as tight as some of his others; rather than creating a guiding narrative, Heinrich merely collects various thoughts into sections that could easily read independently of each other. I prefer a little more overarching continuity in my natural history writing, so that disappointed me somewhat. But, overall, this was an enchanting read.
February 19, 2020
This was a pretty lackluster affair in my estimation. I learned next to nothing about the "meaning and mystery" (or biological causes) of homing and nesting behavior, although I was treated to a lot of aimless holding forth about Heinrich's homesickness for the backwoods of Maine and his love for failed hunting trips. He does describe various animals' behavioral quirks in a scattershot way, but I was hoping for more explanations and less description. Okay I guess, but much more self-indulgent and meandering than I hoped based upon the promises of the title. There are better natural history books out there; I'd seek out one of those instead.
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