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Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World
Tim Low, award-winning author of Feral Future, in an eye-opening book on the unique nature of Australian birds and their role in ecology and global evolution.
Renowned for its unusual mammals, Australia is a land of birds that are just as unusual, just as striking, a result of the continent's tens of millions of years of isolation. Compared with birds elsewhere, ours are more likely to be intelligent, aggressive and loud, to live in complex societies, and are long-lived. They're also ecologically more powerful, exerting more influences on forests than other birds.
But unlike the mammals, the birds did not keep to Australia; they spread around the globe. Australia provided the world with its songbirds and parrots, the most intelligent of all bird groups. It was thought in Darwin's time that species generated in the Southern Hemisphere could not succeed in the Northern, an idea that was proven wrong in respect of birds in the 1980s but not properly accepted by the world's scientists until 2004 – because, says Tim Low, most ornithologists live in the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, few Australians are aware of the ramifications, something which prompted the writing of this book.
Tim Low has a rare gift for illuminating complex ideas in highly readable prose, and making of the whole a dynamic story. Here he brilliantly explains how our birds came to be so extraordinary, including the large role played by the foods they consume (birds, too, are what they eat), and by our climate, soil, fire, and Australia's legacy as a part of Gondwana. The story of its birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of Australia itself, and one that continues to unfold, so much having changed in the last decade about what we know of our ancient past. Where Song Began also shines a light on New Guinea as a biological region of Australia, as much a part of the continent as Tasmania. This is a work that goes far beyond the birds themselves to explore the relationships between Australia's birds and its people, and the ways in which scientific prejudice have hindered our understanding.
'Although Tim Low's book is overwhelmingly, excitingly science-based, he does allow himself the occasional flight of fancy . . . A stimulating, informative read for citizens of our bird-rich metropolis.' Canberra Times
Renowned for its unusual mammals, Australia is a land of birds that are just as unusual, just as striking, a result of the continent's tens of millions of years of isolation. Compared with birds elsewhere, ours are more likely to be intelligent, aggressive and loud, to live in complex societies, and are long-lived. They're also ecologically more powerful, exerting more influences on forests than other birds.
But unlike the mammals, the birds did not keep to Australia; they spread around the globe. Australia provided the world with its songbirds and parrots, the most intelligent of all bird groups. It was thought in Darwin's time that species generated in the Southern Hemisphere could not succeed in the Northern, an idea that was proven wrong in respect of birds in the 1980s but not properly accepted by the world's scientists until 2004 – because, says Tim Low, most ornithologists live in the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, few Australians are aware of the ramifications, something which prompted the writing of this book.
Tim Low has a rare gift for illuminating complex ideas in highly readable prose, and making of the whole a dynamic story. Here he brilliantly explains how our birds came to be so extraordinary, including the large role played by the foods they consume (birds, too, are what they eat), and by our climate, soil, fire, and Australia's legacy as a part of Gondwana. The story of its birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of Australia itself, and one that continues to unfold, so much having changed in the last decade about what we know of our ancient past. Where Song Began also shines a light on New Guinea as a biological region of Australia, as much a part of the continent as Tasmania. This is a work that goes far beyond the birds themselves to explore the relationships between Australia's birds and its people, and the ways in which scientific prejudice have hindered our understanding.
'Although Tim Low's book is overwhelmingly, excitingly science-based, he does allow himself the occasional flight of fancy . . . A stimulating, informative read for citizens of our bird-rich metropolis.' Canberra Times
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 25, 2014
170 people are currently reading
1829 people want to read
About the author
Tim Low
9 books36 followersTim Low is an Australian biologist and author of articles and books on nature and conservation.
For twenty years Low wrote a column in Nature Australia, Australia's leading nature magazine. He contributes to Australian Geographic and other magazines.
Low became very interested in reptiles as a teenager and discovered several new species of lizard. He named the chain-backed dtella (Gehyra catenata) and had the dwarf litter-skink (Menetia timlowi) named after him.
He works as an environmental consultant, writer and photographer, serves on government committees, and does public speaking. He has written many reports about climate change. He is the patron of Rainforest Rescue. Low lives in Brisbane.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Low)
For twenty years Low wrote a column in Nature Australia, Australia's leading nature magazine. He contributes to Australian Geographic and other magazines.
Low became very interested in reptiles as a teenager and discovered several new species of lizard. He named the chain-backed dtella (Gehyra catenata) and had the dwarf litter-skink (Menetia timlowi) named after him.
He works as an environmental consultant, writer and photographer, serves on government committees, and does public speaking. He has written many reports about climate change. He is the patron of Rainforest Rescue. Low lives in Brisbane.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Low)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
October 2, 2021
Many many years back I sat on my parent’s veranda and my father said to me, “look a Dollar Bird” “A what?” I said. He grabbed a bird guide he had recently purchased and showed me a drawing. I have to admit I was intrigued and with that began an interest in our feathers friends. I got a pair of binoculars, a couple of field guides and used them as an addition to my journeys in life. I also discovered that a then work colleague I was on good terms with was a bit of an amateur ornithologist. When time permitted I would go on the occasional drive with him and even to the local Ornithological Society meetings. Back then I read a fair bit of literature on the subject of birds, but have to admit to not being as deeply interested in several years now. Life changes I suppose. As do our interests.
With that I thought that I had better read this natural history as it had been sitting on the shelf since I purchased it in 2017 with the thought that I might like to read something that was of recent vintage on a subject I was once very keen on. To say I am glad I did would be an understatement. Author Tim Low has written a very readable book that covers Australian/New Guinean bird life and its place in the scheme of things. So readable, I found this very difficult to put down and resented having to do other chores. Each chapter had me reading deep about many subjects on the Australian/New Guinean birdlife that I had not really given much thought to previously. Evolution, DNA and how, as the title suggests, song in birdlife began. Why the birdlife I see on a daily basis is loud and aggressive. Why fire is such an important facet to various aspects of not only plant life but the birds that rely on such plants, and much more.
There are twelve chapters in all that cover 318 pages of the text and excellent notes, a superb bibliography and an index that takes this out to a further 405 pages. No chapter is wasted.
Obviously there was discussion on evolution and DNA, just for example, that were going to be new to me but when reading the more empirical observations by Tim Low I found myself nodding as I thought about the raucous noise I hear from Rainbow Lorikeet roosts I walk past, how many times I have been attacked by Noisy Minors, Australian Magpies and Pied Butcherbirds over the years, that the average person is hardly aware of their own birdlife let alone understand its impact on our daily life.
This review does not do this book justice. I can hardly imagine anyone with an interest in the subject of Australian birdlife not learning from or enjoying this masterful natural history.
Highly recommended.
With that I thought that I had better read this natural history as it had been sitting on the shelf since I purchased it in 2017 with the thought that I might like to read something that was of recent vintage on a subject I was once very keen on. To say I am glad I did would be an understatement. Author Tim Low has written a very readable book that covers Australian/New Guinean bird life and its place in the scheme of things. So readable, I found this very difficult to put down and resented having to do other chores. Each chapter had me reading deep about many subjects on the Australian/New Guinean birdlife that I had not really given much thought to previously. Evolution, DNA and how, as the title suggests, song in birdlife began. Why the birdlife I see on a daily basis is loud and aggressive. Why fire is such an important facet to various aspects of not only plant life but the birds that rely on such plants, and much more.
There are twelve chapters in all that cover 318 pages of the text and excellent notes, a superb bibliography and an index that takes this out to a further 405 pages. No chapter is wasted.
Obviously there was discussion on evolution and DNA, just for example, that were going to be new to me but when reading the more empirical observations by Tim Low I found myself nodding as I thought about the raucous noise I hear from Rainbow Lorikeet roosts I walk past, how many times I have been attacked by Noisy Minors, Australian Magpies and Pied Butcherbirds over the years, that the average person is hardly aware of their own birdlife let alone understand its impact on our daily life.
This review does not do this book justice. I can hardly imagine anyone with an interest in the subject of Australian birdlife not learning from or enjoying this masterful natural history.
Highly recommended.
February 18, 2015
I apologise to all my friends and family who will be hearing all about the bird facts I now know.
I also think I'm ready to become a twitcher!
I also think I'm ready to become a twitcher!
May 8, 2017
Read this if you are:
Interested in Australian history (I am)
Interested in bird intelligence and why Australian birds are flying Einsteins (I am)
Interested in why Australian birds are so long-lived and evolved (I am)
Interested in the history of Australian birds (I am a little)
Interested in the changing bird territories in Australia (I am)
Interested in how birds affect the Australian landscape and plant life (I am a little)
Interested in botany (only a bit)
Parts are page turners, and parts not, it's dependent on your passions, but regardless, Low's research and anecdotes here are so impressive they had me soaring up to Cloud Nine. A must read for lovers of natural history. I'm twitching already.
Interested in Australian history (I am)
Interested in bird intelligence and why Australian birds are flying Einsteins (I am)
Interested in why Australian birds are so long-lived and evolved (I am)
Interested in the history of Australian birds (I am a little)
Interested in the changing bird territories in Australia (I am)
Interested in how birds affect the Australian landscape and plant life (I am a little)
Interested in botany (only a bit)
Parts are page turners, and parts not, it's dependent on your passions, but regardless, Low's research and anecdotes here are so impressive they had me soaring up to Cloud Nine. A must read for lovers of natural history. I'm twitching already.
October 1, 2021
http://www.timlow.com/books/bird-book
Wrote a review, went to check a URL, cam back and the whole review is lost! Will have to do it again.
It deserves to be a classic, in print for ever.
Wrote a review, went to check a URL, cam back and the whole review is lost! Will have to do it again.
It deserves to be a classic, in print for ever.
March 31, 2025
Where song began does the best thing non fiction can do. It makes me look around my surroundings with a new wonder. It also does the worst thing nonfiction can do, which is to make me incredibly annoyingly about a particular subject to all my friends and family. I don’t think there is a person I saw in my entire time in Australia that did not learn how Honeyeaters achieved their huge (relative) size, unspecialised beaks and aggression as a product of evolving in nutrient poor Australia.
Where song began was pitched at the exact level of complexity I want from non-fiction. Low freely delves into the most up to date theories, and clarifies where information is rock solid, and where there is contention in his field. His passion is obvious, as he animatedly describes why Australian birds began as large and aggressive and nectar dependent as they are. He includes theories of his own, and though he loves these animals he is not zealous in his writing, and judiciously waxes poetic only if a moment allows for it. Often he describes the ways animals he loves have become threatened, or become problem animals of their own right. The inclusion of indigenous relationships to these animals makes his entire analysis of Australian birds feel comprehensive.
Low could not have provided a more ideal accompaniment to my birdwatching tour of home. His excitement for these animals rubbed off on me and invigorated my birdwatching. Learning fun facts about birds as I was seeing them, such as black kites propensity for spreading fires, the genetic uniqueness of the Musk Duck, or the many famous idiosyncrasies and cultural impacts of lyrebirds. I especially appreciated his own reflections on birdwatching as a hobby as he described my own behaviour and motivations back to me.
This is the gold standard for non-fiction.
Where song began was pitched at the exact level of complexity I want from non-fiction. Low freely delves into the most up to date theories, and clarifies where information is rock solid, and where there is contention in his field. His passion is obvious, as he animatedly describes why Australian birds began as large and aggressive and nectar dependent as they are. He includes theories of his own, and though he loves these animals he is not zealous in his writing, and judiciously waxes poetic only if a moment allows for it. Often he describes the ways animals he loves have become threatened, or become problem animals of their own right. The inclusion of indigenous relationships to these animals makes his entire analysis of Australian birds feel comprehensive.
Low could not have provided a more ideal accompaniment to my birdwatching tour of home. His excitement for these animals rubbed off on me and invigorated my birdwatching. Learning fun facts about birds as I was seeing them, such as black kites propensity for spreading fires, the genetic uniqueness of the Musk Duck, or the many famous idiosyncrasies and cultural impacts of lyrebirds. I especially appreciated his own reflections on birdwatching as a hobby as he described my own behaviour and motivations back to me.
This is the gold standard for non-fiction.
August 25, 2014
Australia is justly famous for its weird and wonderful monotremes and marsupials, but here Tim Low argues convincingly that its bird life is even more fascinating and distinctive. I had expected the book to mostly tell the story of Australia as the evolutionary starting place of songbirds, but it's a much more ambitious story, covering basically the whole evolutionary history of birds in Australia. Low takes a careful, scientific approach - clearly acknowledging the numerous uncertainties in the science and outlining the arguments and counter-arguments where theories are contested. It's a wonderful learning experience, both in terms of the over-arching evolutionary-geographical story and in terms of the neat factoids dotted throughout (e.g. in temperate conditions, budgies and zebra finches can live indefinitely without water, relying solely on the tiny amounts of moisture found in seeds).
February 16, 2022
A well-written book on a fascinating subject, the premise that songbirds came from australia (before it was called that, obviously), and the case is laid out clearly. The vegetation (one example is the grevilleas, not a hybrid and quite an old tree, part of a "relict line" whose "nectar may count as ancient food") and birds (very aggressive, for the most part) thrive together (or perish). There is some avian and vegetative overlap with south africa and south america where this is helpful, and a few mentions of northern lands, but the island continent (also including new guinea, for reasons Low explains) is the focus.
What a wealth of birds and a fine presentation of natural history and biogeography, with some humour (often supplied by the birds, but Low can be drily funny) and many anecdotes and facts that were never part of the history or science I was taught. "One royal albatross was laying eggs and rearing young years after the scientist who banded her fifty-eight years before had gone to the grave." There are photos in colour and in black-and-white (but no maps). A pleasure to read.
What a wealth of birds and a fine presentation of natural history and biogeography, with some humour (often supplied by the birds, but Low can be drily funny) and many anecdotes and facts that were never part of the history or science I was taught. "One royal albatross was laying eggs and rearing young years after the scientist who banded her fifty-eight years before had gone to the grave." There are photos in colour and in black-and-white (but no maps). A pleasure to read.
December 28, 2014
I have a plane to catch this afternoon so I won't have time to do justice to this interesting book, and my knowledge of the subject-matter is quite limited anyway. It is claimed that we live in interesting times with regard to our understanding of the origins of birds. This old continent of ours (Australia) is thought to be the birthplace of songbirds. The best songster of them all is the oldest. The lyrebird began singing in a time when no other bird sang. The birds that followed had to make themselves known to a potential mate in the great din of birdsong, so each species was obliged to stick to a small but distinctive repertoire.
This is a rambling but fascinating overview of current debates surrounding Australian (including New Guinea and New Caledonia) avian fauna. Australia's ancient and mineral-depleted soils have evolved a flora that cannot metabolise, for lack of minerals, the greater part of the sugars they produce by photosynthesis; consequently there is a bonanza of sugars available for Australian fauna, particularly birds. This has produced a great many nectar (and other sugar) specialists which, for reasons created by sugar economies, are among some of the most aggressive birds in the world. Many Australian birds rear their young communally and make territorial defence a communal matter. Pity the poor bird that wanders into a strange territory. Larger species are frequently savagely mobbed, and smaller birds are in some cases driven towards extinction by such territorial behaviour. As a cat-owner I drew comfort from this statement: "Cats attract blame for bird loss around cities when noisy miners [a native species] are a more tangible explanation" (p.50). It is something of a red-letter day when a small bird such as a blue-wren or a crescent honeyeater is seen in our garden.
If you have an interest in Australian birds then this is a very good read. If you know birds but don't know Australia's birds then you should visit Australia. There are only a couple of species that habitually attack humans, and only one out of the nesting season. And don't pay any attention to all that talk about poisonous and dangerous
wildlife either. For every person bitten by a snake there are over 20 million people who will never be bitten by a snake, stung by a box-jellyfish, poisoned by a funnel-web spider or mauled by a shark. Over 700 species of bird have been recorded in Australia, many exotic but mostly endemic and cosmopolitan species. It really is a wonderful place to see birds, especially big brash noisy ones.
This is a rambling but fascinating overview of current debates surrounding Australian (including New Guinea and New Caledonia) avian fauna. Australia's ancient and mineral-depleted soils have evolved a flora that cannot metabolise, for lack of minerals, the greater part of the sugars they produce by photosynthesis; consequently there is a bonanza of sugars available for Australian fauna, particularly birds. This has produced a great many nectar (and other sugar) specialists which, for reasons created by sugar economies, are among some of the most aggressive birds in the world. Many Australian birds rear their young communally and make territorial defence a communal matter. Pity the poor bird that wanders into a strange territory. Larger species are frequently savagely mobbed, and smaller birds are in some cases driven towards extinction by such territorial behaviour. As a cat-owner I drew comfort from this statement: "Cats attract blame for bird loss around cities when noisy miners [a native species] are a more tangible explanation" (p.50). It is something of a red-letter day when a small bird such as a blue-wren or a crescent honeyeater is seen in our garden.
If you have an interest in Australian birds then this is a very good read. If you know birds but don't know Australia's birds then you should visit Australia. There are only a couple of species that habitually attack humans, and only one out of the nesting season. And don't pay any attention to all that talk about poisonous and dangerous
wildlife either. For every person bitten by a snake there are over 20 million people who will never be bitten by a snake, stung by a box-jellyfish, poisoned by a funnel-web spider or mauled by a shark. Over 700 species of bird have been recorded in Australia, many exotic but mostly endemic and cosmopolitan species. It really is a wonderful place to see birds, especially big brash noisy ones.
Read
March 26, 2018A good read, describing the birds from before white settlement to modern times in cities and backyards. Goes through topics like how songbirds came about, grassy landscapes and comparing with birds in the UK.
January 29, 2015
I have this book only 3 stars mainly due to the heavy scientific nature of the subject. Having said that I did read the whole book and I learnt a lot about the subjects of Australian Birds that have given me a new perspective on all things avian. If you have an interest in birds then this is a good read.
February 8, 2017
Extremely interesting and well written, accessible but with a lot of research, reading and field knowledge underpinning the book. A must read for anyone interested in birds and their development.
September 11, 2016
A superb work of bird-centered natural history! My review is here:
http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/boo...
http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/boo...
April 19, 2019
Birds, geology, paleontology, plate tectonics, Australia, trees, and upending convention. Doesn't get better than this.
April 14, 2024
An book of amazing scope describing the unique ecosystems of Australia, the resultant bird life and insights into the evolution of birds.
Australia's dry ecosystems support a unique assemblage of birds. The lack of soil nutrients causes the trees and shrubs, most notably the Myrtles and Proteas, to produce an excess of sugar with the result that many are bird pollinated rather than insect pollinated. As the flowers supply nectar for days they reward aggression, with the result that most Australian birds are noisy. Song is missing from Australian ecosystems. Mistletoes are important in Australian, often flowering out of phase with their eucalypt hosts, thus extending the period over which nectar is available.
Insects feeding on the sap of eucalypts and other Australian trees produce significant amounts of honeydew, manna and lerp. While on other continents aphids suck tree sap, the much larger psyllids and coccids are at work in Australia. Not only are these important foods for such birds as the honeyeaters, but some species have evolved specialized beaks and tongues suited to collection of the same. Australian birds have developed group defence tactics to protect these foods from other birds, the ultimate being the bell and noisy miners. The bell miners not only exclude other birds, but harvest the exudates without removing the harmful insects resulting in the eventual death of the host trees.
Earlier evolutionary thinkers such as Ernst Mayr felt that Australia had received its birds in waves from Asia. Charles Sibley was the first to work with DNA to produce a revised classification of the birds. Further work by Christidis established that the most primitive songbirds were the lyrebirds and apostlebirds, showing that the first radiation started in Australia. The New Zealand wrens, including the riflemen, branched prior to the division of the suboscines and the songbirds. As is the case for many tropical birds, Australia's species tend to be group breeders. They tend to be larger birds an incubate for longer periods. Pair breeding tends to be more common in migrating birds which must produce young over a short period. The lyrebirds and scrub-birds are great singers in spite of having a three muscled syrinx while all other songbirds have the more complex four muscled syrinx.
The parrots evolved in Australia where New South Wales alone has 33 species. Parrots are notable for their intelligence and their destructiveness. Such trees as the eucalypts and bankias are subject to regular fires and retain their seeds in woody pods until fire provides a fertile ash layer for sprouting (often 10 or more years). Many parrot species have evolved to consume these nutritious seeds, but in some cases have specialized on specific tree species that are in decline, putting the parrots as risk.
New Guinea is home to many large birds, such as the birds-of-paradise and bowerbirds, that can spend much time on display because of the availability of large fruits that only they are strong enough to access. The region lacks monkeys, civets and squirrels that would target such fruits in other ecosystems. Australia was dominated by rainforest 40 million years ago, but dried as it moved northward. DNA examination of the birds, mammals, trees and fishes show that many moved north as Australia dried, New Guinea becoming the refuge. There is little evidence of species radiation in New Guinea.
Cassowaries are common south of Cairns and although it is a dangerous bird, people are able to live with them. Australia is the only continent where the largest animal of the rainforest is a bird. However, gigantism where birds lose their ability to fly has happened a number of times. The cassowaries, emus and kiwis are more closely related than the moas and tinamous, the the common ancestor of all these could probably fly. Cassowaries swallow more than 30 kinds of fruit but are notable for the larger fruits that only they can eat. The presence of large fruited trees in Australia's rainforests show that cassowaries roamed there in the past.
While describing biogeography as an uncertain science, Low looks at some of the evidence for Australia as the center of origin for some lines of birds. The waterfowl and the landfowl (pheasants, quail, partridges and megapodes) were early divergences from the rest of the birds, and the presence of many waterfowl in Australia without close relatives suggests that they are lonely survivors of early radiations. Pigeons appear to have originated in Australia, the earliest fossils found there. The dodos have been established to be true pigeons, being most closely related to some of New Guinea's crowned, pheasant and thick-billed pigeons. Hummingbirds are most closely related to swifts with Australia's owlet-nightjars being next.
Low describes the fruit pigeons as forest makers as they do not digest the seeds of the fruit they eat. Being strong flyers they have carried a variety of seeds to outlying islands, establishing rainforests complete with palms and nutmegs. Often they are the only frugivores on smaller islands. Metallic starlings are the second largest contributor to seed movement. The contribution of birds to seed dispersal is mostly understood by examining the distribution of various plant species, but research is now showing that long-distance dispersal by birds was been greatly under-estimated.
Grasses are perhaps the most successful of of plants. Grasses came late to Australia and grass eating kangaroos appeared only a few million years ago. The grass eating birds of Australia came from Asia. Fire aids grasses in that it kills competing trees and shrubs. Many grasses thrive on yearly fires with some able to withstand two a year. The history of Aboriginal burning is unknown and so it is controversial. It is not known whether fires became more widespread with the arrival of man. Aboriginal burns were not set to maximize diversity so it is not clear that they should be copied.
"Charles Elton dismissed the notion of balance of nature back in 1930, and no biologist since has risen to its defence, except for some who unwisely flirt with visions of Gaia. Harmony and balance are Greek aesthetic ideals with no rightful place in biology. In most habitats there is ebb and flow and occasional catastrophe, even over short time scales, with some species increasing while others flounder."
The petrels - albatrosses, shearwaters, petrels and prions - reach their greatest density and diversity in the seas around 50 degrees latitude where the winds below around the world without the impediment of land. They have many adaptions for living far from land including the ability to sleep while flying, an exceptional sense of smell to detect food at distance, the ability to change food to oil so it will last for the long trip home, and the ability to utilize the wind for very efficient flight.
Australia is largely a continent of birds because the marsupials did not do as well as the mammals on other continents, leaving openings for the birds such as those filled by the cassowary, the parrots and the many fruit eaters. It is also a land of reptiles where the pythons and goannas take the place of mammalian predators such as the coyote. Low contrasts Australia with Africa whose many mammals arrived from elsewhere: big cats and hyenas from Eurasia, giraffes from Europe, and cheetahs and zebras from North America.
Low finishes with a chapter on people and birds, looking at hunting, birds as pets, the effects of feeding wild birds and conservation.
Australia's dry ecosystems support a unique assemblage of birds. The lack of soil nutrients causes the trees and shrubs, most notably the Myrtles and Proteas, to produce an excess of sugar with the result that many are bird pollinated rather than insect pollinated. As the flowers supply nectar for days they reward aggression, with the result that most Australian birds are noisy. Song is missing from Australian ecosystems. Mistletoes are important in Australian, often flowering out of phase with their eucalypt hosts, thus extending the period over which nectar is available.
Insects feeding on the sap of eucalypts and other Australian trees produce significant amounts of honeydew, manna and lerp. While on other continents aphids suck tree sap, the much larger psyllids and coccids are at work in Australia. Not only are these important foods for such birds as the honeyeaters, but some species have evolved specialized beaks and tongues suited to collection of the same. Australian birds have developed group defence tactics to protect these foods from other birds, the ultimate being the bell and noisy miners. The bell miners not only exclude other birds, but harvest the exudates without removing the harmful insects resulting in the eventual death of the host trees.
Earlier evolutionary thinkers such as Ernst Mayr felt that Australia had received its birds in waves from Asia. Charles Sibley was the first to work with DNA to produce a revised classification of the birds. Further work by Christidis established that the most primitive songbirds were the lyrebirds and apostlebirds, showing that the first radiation started in Australia. The New Zealand wrens, including the riflemen, branched prior to the division of the suboscines and the songbirds. As is the case for many tropical birds, Australia's species tend to be group breeders. They tend to be larger birds an incubate for longer periods. Pair breeding tends to be more common in migrating birds which must produce young over a short period. The lyrebirds and scrub-birds are great singers in spite of having a three muscled syrinx while all other songbirds have the more complex four muscled syrinx.
The parrots evolved in Australia where New South Wales alone has 33 species. Parrots are notable for their intelligence and their destructiveness. Such trees as the eucalypts and bankias are subject to regular fires and retain their seeds in woody pods until fire provides a fertile ash layer for sprouting (often 10 or more years). Many parrot species have evolved to consume these nutritious seeds, but in some cases have specialized on specific tree species that are in decline, putting the parrots as risk.
New Guinea is home to many large birds, such as the birds-of-paradise and bowerbirds, that can spend much time on display because of the availability of large fruits that only they are strong enough to access. The region lacks monkeys, civets and squirrels that would target such fruits in other ecosystems. Australia was dominated by rainforest 40 million years ago, but dried as it moved northward. DNA examination of the birds, mammals, trees and fishes show that many moved north as Australia dried, New Guinea becoming the refuge. There is little evidence of species radiation in New Guinea.
Cassowaries are common south of Cairns and although it is a dangerous bird, people are able to live with them. Australia is the only continent where the largest animal of the rainforest is a bird. However, gigantism where birds lose their ability to fly has happened a number of times. The cassowaries, emus and kiwis are more closely related than the moas and tinamous, the the common ancestor of all these could probably fly. Cassowaries swallow more than 30 kinds of fruit but are notable for the larger fruits that only they can eat. The presence of large fruited trees in Australia's rainforests show that cassowaries roamed there in the past.
While describing biogeography as an uncertain science, Low looks at some of the evidence for Australia as the center of origin for some lines of birds. The waterfowl and the landfowl (pheasants, quail, partridges and megapodes) were early divergences from the rest of the birds, and the presence of many waterfowl in Australia without close relatives suggests that they are lonely survivors of early radiations. Pigeons appear to have originated in Australia, the earliest fossils found there. The dodos have been established to be true pigeons, being most closely related to some of New Guinea's crowned, pheasant and thick-billed pigeons. Hummingbirds are most closely related to swifts with Australia's owlet-nightjars being next.
Low describes the fruit pigeons as forest makers as they do not digest the seeds of the fruit they eat. Being strong flyers they have carried a variety of seeds to outlying islands, establishing rainforests complete with palms and nutmegs. Often they are the only frugivores on smaller islands. Metallic starlings are the second largest contributor to seed movement. The contribution of birds to seed dispersal is mostly understood by examining the distribution of various plant species, but research is now showing that long-distance dispersal by birds was been greatly under-estimated.
Grasses are perhaps the most successful of of plants. Grasses came late to Australia and grass eating kangaroos appeared only a few million years ago. The grass eating birds of Australia came from Asia. Fire aids grasses in that it kills competing trees and shrubs. Many grasses thrive on yearly fires with some able to withstand two a year. The history of Aboriginal burning is unknown and so it is controversial. It is not known whether fires became more widespread with the arrival of man. Aboriginal burns were not set to maximize diversity so it is not clear that they should be copied.
"Charles Elton dismissed the notion of balance of nature back in 1930, and no biologist since has risen to its defence, except for some who unwisely flirt with visions of Gaia. Harmony and balance are Greek aesthetic ideals with no rightful place in biology. In most habitats there is ebb and flow and occasional catastrophe, even over short time scales, with some species increasing while others flounder."
The petrels - albatrosses, shearwaters, petrels and prions - reach their greatest density and diversity in the seas around 50 degrees latitude where the winds below around the world without the impediment of land. They have many adaptions for living far from land including the ability to sleep while flying, an exceptional sense of smell to detect food at distance, the ability to change food to oil so it will last for the long trip home, and the ability to utilize the wind for very efficient flight.
Australia is largely a continent of birds because the marsupials did not do as well as the mammals on other continents, leaving openings for the birds such as those filled by the cassowary, the parrots and the many fruit eaters. It is also a land of reptiles where the pythons and goannas take the place of mammalian predators such as the coyote. Low contrasts Australia with Africa whose many mammals arrived from elsewhere: big cats and hyenas from Eurasia, giraffes from Europe, and cheetahs and zebras from North America.
Low finishes with a chapter on people and birds, looking at hunting, birds as pets, the effects of feeding wild birds and conservation.
September 11, 2020
This book about the biogeographical importance of Australian birds is a great read, full of information and detail. I picked up many interesting points from it, and I really wanted to like it more than I did: unfortunately, it is hampered by two things. One, the structure and writing style: the author is often prone to splat a loosely-related pile of thoughts on the page without it forming a flowing, coherent stream or argument. As a reader you have to work hard to extract a "bigger picture" sense from the mosaic of facts and thoughts. This sometimes goes right down to the sentence level with awkward phrasing that could easily have been smoothed out with better editing. Secondly, the book starts off strongly with the case for the diversity and importance of Australian songbirds, but particularly in the last third, veers off into tangents about seabirds and conservation: all very good topics, but without an attempt to relate them to the book's main thesis, leaves the whole feeling disconnected.
These quibbles aside, I wish to reiterate that I definitely got a lot out of this book - coming away convinced of the centrality of Australian birds in the DNA tree of life; a good and deep understanding of why they are often rowdy and aggressive; the uniqueness of Aussie birds and perhaps more surprisingly, its forests and flora; a better understanding of the biological regions of Australia (which necessarily includes New Guinea, from that point of view), and so much more.
These quibbles aside, I wish to reiterate that I definitely got a lot out of this book - coming away convinced of the centrality of Australian birds in the DNA tree of life; a good and deep understanding of why they are often rowdy and aggressive; the uniqueness of Aussie birds and perhaps more surprisingly, its forests and flora; a better understanding of the biological regions of Australia (which necessarily includes New Guinea, from that point of view), and so much more.
February 9, 2021
I've never been to Australia and I don't have any plan to go there, but I was fascinated by this book about the evolution and behavior of Australia's birds. If you have an interest in evolution or bird behavior, don't miss this book.
Northern people long assumed that birds must have evolved in the North, but Tim Low offers convincing evidence that songbirds could have evolved in Australia. He also tells how birds in Australia and nearby islands are different because mammals in their area did not develop to fill as many ecological niches as they did in many other parts of the world. Birds filled those niches.
Many more Australian birds than birds in other places eat nectar. Since large birds like parrots compete for nectar, the competition is fierce and smaller birds lose out. Australian birds are more aggressive than birds in other places, Low suggests. He tells how some species, such as noisy miners, attack and drive away birds of other species. Australia also has the only bird that enslaves the young of other birds, the white-winged chough.
Northern people long assumed that birds must have evolved in the North, but Tim Low offers convincing evidence that songbirds could have evolved in Australia. He also tells how birds in Australia and nearby islands are different because mammals in their area did not develop to fill as many ecological niches as they did in many other parts of the world. Birds filled those niches.
Many more Australian birds than birds in other places eat nectar. Since large birds like parrots compete for nectar, the competition is fierce and smaller birds lose out. Australian birds are more aggressive than birds in other places, Low suggests. He tells how some species, such as noisy miners, attack and drive away birds of other species. Australia also has the only bird that enslaves the young of other birds, the white-winged chough.
November 12, 2022
A brilliantly written and readable book that gives us a tour of Australian bird life and places them were they deserve to be recognized in the evolution of today's birds around the world. The uniqueness of Australian birds is on full display and we understand why the behave in a manner that may seem unfamiliar to those of us used to North American and European birds. Importantly, we fully see that Australian bird history goes deep back in time and that radiations of birds out of Australia are responsible for song birds the world over.
May 17, 2021
I had hoped that the great Emu war would have merited more than a brief mention in a book all about Australian birds, but the book contained enough interesting tidbits of avian evolution to merit the 4 stars.
January 20, 2024
Fantastic read. A rare mix of thorough science and engaging storytelling
July 8, 2020
Informative, but exhaustive in an exhausting way.
October 15, 2015
Detailed, with a clear, interesting and new thesis, and told with both passion and a talent for the one-liner, this was very much my kind of book. Low moves confidently through the subject matter, starting with the big stuff - how songbirds, parrots and others substantially evolved in Southern lands, a fact which has been generally accepted for just a decade, and the vast implications that has for our understanding of bird evolution as a whole.The book also ranges through waterbirds, fowls and others.
The story of bird origins is fabulous - understanding the role of Australia's sweet landscape, the possible importance of a mammal-weak continent in bird evolution, the role of isolated islands is allowing for waterbird specialisation and more. Low carefully distinguishes between consensus science, controversy and his own speculations. The latter, his strong, welcoming intellect makes a pleasure to read. You get the sense chats over a campsite beer with Low would be unforgettable, even if there is a little ranting about the overrating of the Daintree involved.
Along the way, Low tackles ideas about the history of classification - what do you do with the 'rattites' for example, once genetic evidence provides better understanding than the term represents? Beneath that he hints at a larger conversation - what is the usefulness of grouping by form as opposed to history? What is the role of study?
Low's keen interest in how and why we study birds shows throughout - the later chapter directly tackles the Australian ornithologist history, but pervasively throughout is a preoccupation with how the hemispherical origination of birds gels with our own perceptions of the world - that Europe, and complex songs, and monogomy are at the heart of it. (Southern birds are apparently more promiscious and more inclined to collective rearing of young). This passion, not only for how birds evolved from dinosaurs to today, but also what that means for us, is the books strongest part. The mid latter chapters lose focus a bit, making them less compelling.
The joy of new discovery bouys this into a cheerful book (strangely added to by Low's grumpy-old-man moments 'don't describe the Daintree as ancient! Calling Australia's Aboriginal-cultivated an 'estate'or an 'artefact' ignores the contribution of plant specialisation to the ecological partnership!), but much of the subject matter - the inexorable changes wrought by settlement and the rapid extinction and endangerment of some plant and bird species, and the expansion of others - is grim. The book is far from an immediate call to reader action - the problems are too complex for simple solutions - but it serves well for a demand to change priorities, to take climate change seriously as an unfolding crisis and to work out how humans can share spaces with the rest of Earth life.
The story of bird origins is fabulous - understanding the role of Australia's sweet landscape, the possible importance of a mammal-weak continent in bird evolution, the role of isolated islands is allowing for waterbird specialisation and more. Low carefully distinguishes between consensus science, controversy and his own speculations. The latter, his strong, welcoming intellect makes a pleasure to read. You get the sense chats over a campsite beer with Low would be unforgettable, even if there is a little ranting about the overrating of the Daintree involved.
Along the way, Low tackles ideas about the history of classification - what do you do with the 'rattites' for example, once genetic evidence provides better understanding than the term represents? Beneath that he hints at a larger conversation - what is the usefulness of grouping by form as opposed to history? What is the role of study?
Low's keen interest in how and why we study birds shows throughout - the later chapter directly tackles the Australian ornithologist history, but pervasively throughout is a preoccupation with how the hemispherical origination of birds gels with our own perceptions of the world - that Europe, and complex songs, and monogomy are at the heart of it. (Southern birds are apparently more promiscious and more inclined to collective rearing of young). This passion, not only for how birds evolved from dinosaurs to today, but also what that means for us, is the books strongest part. The mid latter chapters lose focus a bit, making them less compelling.
The joy of new discovery bouys this into a cheerful book (strangely added to by Low's grumpy-old-man moments 'don't describe the Daintree as ancient! Calling Australia's Aboriginal-cultivated an 'estate'or an 'artefact' ignores the contribution of plant specialisation to the ecological partnership!), but much of the subject matter - the inexorable changes wrought by settlement and the rapid extinction and endangerment of some plant and bird species, and the expansion of others - is grim. The book is far from an immediate call to reader action - the problems are too complex for simple solutions - but it serves well for a demand to change priorities, to take climate change seriously as an unfolding crisis and to work out how humans can share spaces with the rest of Earth life.
February 15, 2015
I've just finished this magnificent book - finally! If you enjoy reading non-fiction, especially about birds, I implore you to grab a copy. I feel as though I've just graduated from bird school; I've accumulated a wealth of knowledge about bird evolution, ecology, biology, relationships (between species, and also with plants in particular), biogeography, conservation and more.
Tim writes in a style that is easy to digest for a non-ecologist/biologist (although I do have an environmental/earth sciences background) by being comprehensive, but conversational and limiting scientific jargon. So whilst it took me a while to read, it wasn't because it was too 'heavy' in content.
I have discovered so many things I didn't know before, such as how copious nectar drives aggression in Australian birds, and gave us honeyeaters of varying shapes and sizes (consider the large yellow wattlebird as compared to much smaller New Holland honeyeaters). I saw rainbow lorikeets feeding on 'lerp' on the large eucalypts outside my house recently, and got very excited because I finally knew what the little white dots on the leaves were, thanks to this book!
The evolutionary history of birds in Australia I found the most fascinating - because essentially, Australia gave the world its songbirds/perching birds, and that gives me immense pride! I also like that Tim places New Guinea into the Australian equation. As he states: "To include Tasmania but not New Guinea is to let nationalism distort ecological thinking. [....] New Guinea's birds are part of the Australian bird fauna." It makes perfect sense.
Now, I'm going to end this now otherwise I will go on and on, singing its praises, but "Where Song Began" is a must read for Australian bird enthusiasts. You will not regret it.
Tim writes in a style that is easy to digest for a non-ecologist/biologist (although I do have an environmental/earth sciences background) by being comprehensive, but conversational and limiting scientific jargon. So whilst it took me a while to read, it wasn't because it was too 'heavy' in content.
I have discovered so many things I didn't know before, such as how copious nectar drives aggression in Australian birds, and gave us honeyeaters of varying shapes and sizes (consider the large yellow wattlebird as compared to much smaller New Holland honeyeaters). I saw rainbow lorikeets feeding on 'lerp' on the large eucalypts outside my house recently, and got very excited because I finally knew what the little white dots on the leaves were, thanks to this book!
The evolutionary history of birds in Australia I found the most fascinating - because essentially, Australia gave the world its songbirds/perching birds, and that gives me immense pride! I also like that Tim places New Guinea into the Australian equation. As he states: "To include Tasmania but not New Guinea is to let nationalism distort ecological thinking. [....] New Guinea's birds are part of the Australian bird fauna." It makes perfect sense.
Now, I'm going to end this now otherwise I will go on and on, singing its praises, but "Where Song Began" is a must read for Australian bird enthusiasts. You will not regret it.
September 14, 2019
Not being Australian, I don't think I am in the core audience for this book. Nonetheless, I found it fascinating. While he dives into the details, especially in the second half of the book, Low always tries to give a wide perspective. I like that he tries to explain why Australian birds are different, the evolutionary reasons. (Of course these speculative explanations could be wrong, but they are still interesting to consider.) I would have preferred to have more anecdotal stories from Low himself about his interactions with birds, or with bird science. He includes a few such stories, but they are very brief and not particularly interesting.
> Twenty million years ago Australia was wetter and largely clad in rainforest. For much of its past it was united with Antarctica by a peninsula of land that gradually narrowed and was finally severed some 45–38 million years ago. … The continent slowly dried as it wandered north, 7–8 centimetres a year, into the dry middle latitudes. … From 100,000 years to about 11,000 years ago it would have been possible to hike 5000 kilometres from northern New Guinea all the way to southern Tasmania.
> One book on the subject expressed the general view that no bird-pollinated flowers exist in Europe, nor in Asia north of the Himalayas. That was proved wrong by a 2005 article, "First Confirmation of a Native Bird-pollinated Plant in Europe," when warblers were seen on rare pea flowers in Spain, but the pool of examples remains ridiculously small. The contrast with Australia could hardly be greater. Many of its best known plants are bird-pollinated: banksias, grevilleas, bottlebrushes, grasstrees, paperbarks, hakeas and hundreds of eucalypts. Birds are not the only visitors of these flowers but often serve as their best pollinators.
> Nectar birds are plentiful in Africa, the Americas and tropical Asia, but the vast majority are tiny hummingbirds and sunbirds. … Australia's biggest honeyeater – the Tasmanian yellow wattlebird – is five times the weight of the largest nectar bird on another continent, the spectacled spiderhunter of South-East Asia, a large sunbird.
> Australia's ample sunshine and depleted soils encourage plants to produce more carbohydrates than they can use. All the sugars produced by photosynthesis cannot be converted into tissues or seeds because the soil nutrients needed as additional ingredients are scarce. The surplus sugar is fed to birds as nectar in return for pollination. Birds can thrive on this sugar because they eat insects as well to provide missing nutrients. Honeyeaters will pursue flies so tiny that more energy is lost chasing them than is gained eating them, but they have bountiful sugar to fund their pursuit of rare phosphorus, zinc, iodine and cobalt. These minerals have become precious because Australia is so flat and geologically stable that there is little new soil created to replace the nutrients leached away by tens of millions of years of rain.
> The large landmasses in the north accumulated so much ice that plants had to relocate to survive. In the Southern Hemisphere, oceans moderated temperatures by carrying warm water south and persistence in situ was often possible. Australia is so infertile that many plants succeed by adapting to certain soils, reducing the value of migration because the soils vary so much from region to region. A strong flowering effort reduces the need to move by assisting genetic turnover in times of change.
> The Sydney region alone has more than twice as many eucalypt species (100-plus) as Britain has total tree species.
> Wind-pollinated trees cannot mingle like this because too much pollen reaches the wrong stigmas. … A large pool of trees can sustain a large community of birds if flowering across a region is staggered to provide continuity. Bird pollination benefits from diverse forests in a way wind pollination does not. … The presence of the honey possum, the world's only non-flying flower mammal, one that depends entirely on pollen for protein, attests to nonstop nectar for millions of years past.
> Parrots may account for the difference in accessibility, since their beak shape means they can't get nectar from tubes unless they tear open and ruin flowers. I suspect that, to limit damage from parrots, Australian flowers evolved readily accessible nectar, and this liberated honeyeaters from the need for specialised bills.
> Honeydew shows up mainly in cool places, perhaps because sugar plays a role as antifreeze in sap. … Cider gums are Australia’s most cold-adapted trees, with sap that thickens into a honey-like syrup you can lick from the tree. In the Northern Hemisphere, maple sap only becomes sweet when it is boiled down to syrup.
> Of the three groups of birds that learn rather than inherit their calls – songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds – the first two count as the most intelligent of birds, some proving better at problem solving than most mammals. … From what we currently know, a capacity for vocal learning has evolved eight times, the other occasions being among humans, elephants, seals, dolphins and whales, and some bats.
> Parrots have a discerning palette, with somewhere between 300 and 400 taste buds, more than chickens (250–350) and many more than pigeons (37–75) and bullfinches (46), though far fewer than humans (9000) and catfish (100 000).
> To conserve scarce nutrients in the highly infertile soils, plants produce long-lasting leaves, protected from herbivores by high levels of fibre and often tainted with aromatic oils and phenolics. These defences are cheap for plants to produce because the key ingredient is carbon fixed during photosynthesis, rather than, as in most toxins, scarce nitrogen extracted from the soil. The oils and lignin in these sclerophyll plants, as they are called, burn readily, resulting in leaves that are often flammable when green. Orians and Milewski stressed that plants are flammable where soils are poor
> Australia has ten times as many pigeon genera as Europe, and twice as many as North and South America combined (they have ten altogether to Australia's twenty).
> Seabird wings, being long and thin for soaring, have reduced value for lift. An albatross on land cannot explode into flight like a startled pigeon; it must leap or lean into turbulence, or lumber along the ground flapping. No albatross or shearwater ever pulled up gracefully in a tree, as their wings have poor braking power and their paddle feet lack a toe for grip. All petrels nest on or under the ground, never up in trees, obliging them to find islands without mammals. … Because its chicks, on their maiden flight, need a long drop to engage their wings, Abbott's booby is the only seabird anywhere to need tall rainforest.
> Twenty million years ago Australia was wetter and largely clad in rainforest. For much of its past it was united with Antarctica by a peninsula of land that gradually narrowed and was finally severed some 45–38 million years ago. … The continent slowly dried as it wandered north, 7–8 centimetres a year, into the dry middle latitudes. … From 100,000 years to about 11,000 years ago it would have been possible to hike 5000 kilometres from northern New Guinea all the way to southern Tasmania.
> One book on the subject expressed the general view that no bird-pollinated flowers exist in Europe, nor in Asia north of the Himalayas. That was proved wrong by a 2005 article, "First Confirmation of a Native Bird-pollinated Plant in Europe," when warblers were seen on rare pea flowers in Spain, but the pool of examples remains ridiculously small. The contrast with Australia could hardly be greater. Many of its best known plants are bird-pollinated: banksias, grevilleas, bottlebrushes, grasstrees, paperbarks, hakeas and hundreds of eucalypts. Birds are not the only visitors of these flowers but often serve as their best pollinators.
> Nectar birds are plentiful in Africa, the Americas and tropical Asia, but the vast majority are tiny hummingbirds and sunbirds. … Australia's biggest honeyeater – the Tasmanian yellow wattlebird – is five times the weight of the largest nectar bird on another continent, the spectacled spiderhunter of South-East Asia, a large sunbird.
> Australia's ample sunshine and depleted soils encourage plants to produce more carbohydrates than they can use. All the sugars produced by photosynthesis cannot be converted into tissues or seeds because the soil nutrients needed as additional ingredients are scarce. The surplus sugar is fed to birds as nectar in return for pollination. Birds can thrive on this sugar because they eat insects as well to provide missing nutrients. Honeyeaters will pursue flies so tiny that more energy is lost chasing them than is gained eating them, but they have bountiful sugar to fund their pursuit of rare phosphorus, zinc, iodine and cobalt. These minerals have become precious because Australia is so flat and geologically stable that there is little new soil created to replace the nutrients leached away by tens of millions of years of rain.
> The large landmasses in the north accumulated so much ice that plants had to relocate to survive. In the Southern Hemisphere, oceans moderated temperatures by carrying warm water south and persistence in situ was often possible. Australia is so infertile that many plants succeed by adapting to certain soils, reducing the value of migration because the soils vary so much from region to region. A strong flowering effort reduces the need to move by assisting genetic turnover in times of change.
> The Sydney region alone has more than twice as many eucalypt species (100-plus) as Britain has total tree species.
> Wind-pollinated trees cannot mingle like this because too much pollen reaches the wrong stigmas. … A large pool of trees can sustain a large community of birds if flowering across a region is staggered to provide continuity. Bird pollination benefits from diverse forests in a way wind pollination does not. … The presence of the honey possum, the world's only non-flying flower mammal, one that depends entirely on pollen for protein, attests to nonstop nectar for millions of years past.
> Parrots may account for the difference in accessibility, since their beak shape means they can't get nectar from tubes unless they tear open and ruin flowers. I suspect that, to limit damage from parrots, Australian flowers evolved readily accessible nectar, and this liberated honeyeaters from the need for specialised bills.
> Honeydew shows up mainly in cool places, perhaps because sugar plays a role as antifreeze in sap. … Cider gums are Australia’s most cold-adapted trees, with sap that thickens into a honey-like syrup you can lick from the tree. In the Northern Hemisphere, maple sap only becomes sweet when it is boiled down to syrup.
> Of the three groups of birds that learn rather than inherit their calls – songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds – the first two count as the most intelligent of birds, some proving better at problem solving than most mammals. … From what we currently know, a capacity for vocal learning has evolved eight times, the other occasions being among humans, elephants, seals, dolphins and whales, and some bats.
> Parrots have a discerning palette, with somewhere between 300 and 400 taste buds, more than chickens (250–350) and many more than pigeons (37–75) and bullfinches (46), though far fewer than humans (9000) and catfish (100 000).
> To conserve scarce nutrients in the highly infertile soils, plants produce long-lasting leaves, protected from herbivores by high levels of fibre and often tainted with aromatic oils and phenolics. These defences are cheap for plants to produce because the key ingredient is carbon fixed during photosynthesis, rather than, as in most toxins, scarce nitrogen extracted from the soil. The oils and lignin in these sclerophyll plants, as they are called, burn readily, resulting in leaves that are often flammable when green. Orians and Milewski stressed that plants are flammable where soils are poor
> Australia has ten times as many pigeon genera as Europe, and twice as many as North and South America combined (they have ten altogether to Australia's twenty).
> Seabird wings, being long and thin for soaring, have reduced value for lift. An albatross on land cannot explode into flight like a startled pigeon; it must leap or lean into turbulence, or lumber along the ground flapping. No albatross or shearwater ever pulled up gracefully in a tree, as their wings have poor braking power and their paddle feet lack a toe for grip. All petrels nest on or under the ground, never up in trees, obliging them to find islands without mammals. … Because its chicks, on their maiden flight, need a long drop to engage their wings, Abbott's booby is the only seabird anywhere to need tall rainforest.
March 18, 2018
Who’d have thought a non-fiction book on birds would be a page-turner! Turns out this one is. Tim Low has a pacy style of writing, and he’s not shy about putting forward his opinions. It’s great to find serious non-fiction with a popular pull. The last book I read like this was 'The Hidden Life of Trees' by Peter Wohleben, a best-seller around the world but with a definite Northern Hemisphere focus. Putting Australian birds at the centre of the bird world might not be popular in the Northern Hemisphere, but for a fellow antipodean this was refreshing. I loved the scope of this book, starting with the intriguing business of sugar feeding birds, the book spanned bird evolution, ecology, and conservation issues. I was left gasping for breath at the end. There are plenty of mentions of New Zealand birds and those interested in finding out more would find a good companion read in be recently revised 'Ghosts of Gondwana' by George Gibbs. There are a few photos in the book but those not familiar with Australian birds might be disappointed there aren’t more. Still it’s easy to look up birds in a field guide or App as you read along. I’ll definitely be packing this book on my next trip to Australia, it’ll be a perfect re-read while I’m listening to raucous cockatoos and honeyeaters.
November 5, 2022
Had some very interesting insights into Australia's incredible birdlife and i felt like I learnt a lot. Unfortunately it is written from a very Western scientific viewpoint and doesn't leave much space for respect of Australia's First Nations people and the incredible knowledge they would have of Australia's birds. I believe this is of critical importance when discussing any Australian history and its a shame that this book skipped over this wealth of knowledge.
December 26, 2020
Although this book is amazing informative on terms of the nature of its subject, being birds. I found that the book lacked structure and didn’t flow from topic to topic, which made it easy to get lost and hard to find your way again. Apart from a few sections, I did enjoy reading it, however I’d only recommend for hardcore twitchers.
September 30, 2014
BRILLIANT I can't praise it enough. I loved learning about those amazing gorgeous critters that live outside my door. One caveat: Not a fast fun read. It took me way longer than i usually read. It is not for those not comfortable with science as it reads somewhat like a science text.
March 27, 2015
A great read, and not too difficult for a non-biologist at all. I rather like the little personal asides as they break up the scientific stuff a little, giving my brain a chance to catch up. Tailed off a little at the end. Lovely pictures of some of our birds as well.
October 26, 2021
An interesting book about the evolution of the birds with special attention on the Australian ones. Well presented and interestingly written but unfortunately the contents far too advanced for the bird ignoramus like myself. Highly recommended for the right reader.
May 15, 2015
Not a page-turner, but lots of insights into the ecology of Australia's birds. And their relationship to trees, humans, etc.
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