Niko's Nature: The Life of Niko Tinbergen and His Science of Animal Behaviour

by Hans Kruuk

Here is the first biography of Niko Tinbergen, the brilliant but reticent naturalist (once described as "pathologically modest") who turned a passion for observing nature into a revolutionary new branch of science that illuminated the study of animal behavior.
Tracing the closely intertwined threads of Niko's personal and professional life, Hans Kruuk reveals the man behind the scientist. He shows how Niko's Calvinist upbringing in a highly intellectual Dutch family--his father was a much-published scholar, his elder brother a Nobel Laureate in Economics--the two-years he spent in a hostage camp during the Nazi occupation of Holland, and most importantly the magical year in Greenland, where he lived amongst the Inuit and observed animals in their natural habitat--an experience that would shape his scientific disposition. The period in Greenland set the stage for the groundbreaking experiments with free-living birds in the 1930s and 1940s that brought the study of animal behavior out of the laboratory and into the wild. Kruuk also offers an illuminating exploration of Niko's work with Konrad Lorenz, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1973; his great success as a teacher at Oxford, where he was known by enthusiastic students--Desmond
Morris, Richard Dawkins, and John Krebs, among them--as "The Maestro"; his frequent bouts of depression; the triumph of his book The Study of Instinct , which established ethology as a science; his controversial work on autism in children, and much more.
Written by Hans Kruuk, a former student of Niko Tinbergen and himself a distinguished scientist, Niko's Nature offers a fascinating and affectionate account of the man who forever changed the way we think about animal behavior.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Biography

406 pages, Hardcover

First published November 13, 2003

Reviews

[Cameron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though it did indeed encompass the life of Niko Tinbergen, it had far too much of an academic slant, and focused far too much on the academic work and achievements of Tinbergen, to properly appeal to a wider audience. Additionally, I found there to be far too much 'Lorenz-bashing' in the book, which appears to either stem from personal experience, or due to the author's hero-worship of Tinbergen (who the author seemed to consider much-maligned in Konrad Lorenz's favour - going into great detail, emphasising all the qualities that made Tinbergen the better scientist, and the inferior traits of Lorenz that confirmed this). It also struck me as reticent of partisan-politics, which has no place in academic literature, or wide-spread literature (or, arguably, politics). I digress.
However, the ending of the penultimate chapter (which I feel should really have been the final chapter, with 'Niko's Legacy' making a suitable epilogue), was rather touching. The last page or so was devoted to the passing of Lies and Niko, who we had followed throughout the book. The final line, simple but apt (perhaps representative of Niko himself), misted my eyes, upon reading it for the first time, and just now (13/05/16), when I re-read it, just before returning it to my university library; and was deeply symbolic of the partnership, and relationship, between the two scientific greats.
"Konrad Lorenz had died two months after Niko."

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wonderful biography is written by one of Tinbergen's students. It offers a very lively overview of the origins of ethology. The title seems to refer both to the nature that Tinbergen and to Tinburgen's own nature. Tinbergen the person is presented in a complex three dimensional way.By the end I felt almost as though I knew him. That is not to say that I felt that I understood him. Particularly compelling for me was the way in which Kruuk portrayed the impact of Tinbergen's episodes of severe depression. It is a story of great triumph, but in the end a sad one.