Fuglenes vidunderlige verden: Hva fuglene kan fortelle om oss selv, verden og en bedre fremtid

by Jim Robbins, Gunnar Nyquist (Translator)

Fugler finnes overalt på hele kloden, og vi elsker å se på dem, høre dem synge og ha dem som kjæledyr. De har fått oss til å drømme om å mestre luftrommet og lært oss å fly, og gitt oss kunnskap om hvordan lage varme klær. Men det foregår ny, spennende forskning som gjør at fuglene i fremtiden vil lære oss mye mer.

Fuglenes vidunderlige verden er en bok om vårt nære forhold til fugler.

Genres: Birds, Nonfiction, Nature, Science, Animals, Audiobook, Biology

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 30, 2017

Reviews

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us about Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future by Jim Robbins is journey of love and fascination between mankind and birds. A journal where man has benefited by watching our feathered friends in different ways and how they have enriched our lives, how they have helped our planet, and have pleased our eyes and warmed our hearts. It is written so warmly, and tenderly, I can feel the love for the feathered creatures from far away and it warmed me...As a bird lover, nature lover, this is a treasure! For everyone, this book will delight and open their minds to our magical friends of a feather. The author takes us, hand and wing, on a journey through differences and changes that link us together. It is amazing how we are linked together in this amazing thing called life. Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book.

[Lucy Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

The wonderful world of birds - in an easy-to-read, accessible format.

Birds are fascinating creatures. Direct descendants of dinosaurs, they're capable of not only flight but a myriad of other impressive things - yet we often take them for granted.

This book highlights, in wonderfully accessible language, just why birds are so remarkable. Each chapter is devoted to a different attribute - flight, eggs, intelligence and so forth. Some chapters were particularly fascinating, such as the one on Corvids and their ability to create tools - amazing! The chapter on the USA's 'broiler belt' and the cruelty to chickens was likewise interesting and very hard-hitting.

All the contents are backed up by scientific research and statistics, including some interviews with known experts in the field. However, at no point did I feel bamboozled by jargon - I loved that it was so easy to read.

Only one tiny thing - I was bemused when the author said he liked to hunt birds. This seemed rather at odds with someone who professes to love them. But there you go, takes all sorts.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book certainly had a lot of information about birds. It stressed the connections and similarities between birds and humans. Birds are sentinels, food, sources of guano, insect exterminators and many other things. The book explores their intelligence, methods of communication and family dynamics. Personally, I believe in the awesomeness of birds irregardless of their usefulness to us and I sort of wish people would stop experimenting on them. I also wish that the author would stop hunting and killing them and I find it difficult to reconcile that behavior with a professed love of birds. I regret that we will never again get to see a flock of passenger pigeons a mile wide and more than 300 miles long.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is softer than I expected, but there was a lot of good information in the book. It would have been better if I could have trusted it more. He glossed over some complex issues & cherry-picked the data to make his point. I didn't appreciate the mix of New Age bullshit that he sprinkled throughout & spread heavily toward the end. (See Part 1, Chapter 4 for one example.) He also has a strong 'eco friendly' attitude that too often denigrates humans without showing the full story.

Still, it was a pretty good book & well narrated. I'm on the fence at 3.5 stars, but will give it 4 for the first 2/3 of the book & the good info it had.

Table of Contents
Part I: What Birds Tell Us About the Natural World
Chapter 1: Birds: The Dinosaurs That Made It: has very light explanations on bird physiology & evolution. If you're interested, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World is good.

Chapter 2: Hummingbirds: The Magic of Flight For all the miles we travel by air, we don't understand it very well & Robbins doesn't help with his simplistic explanations. Here is a better explanation.

Chapter 3: Canaries and Black-Backed Woodpeckers: Birds as Flying Sentinels - gives an excellent overview of how bird populations indicate the health of the ecosystem similar to canaries indicating bad air in a mine. (Until the 1980s!) He discusses eBird, too. It's a great way of crowd sourcing bird populations. I've been participating for some years & highly recommend it. (It helps me notice all the birds & learn the differences between them. Who knew I'd ever be able to figure out & appreciate the differences between sparrow species?!!!)

Chapter 4: A Murmuring of Birds: The Extraordinary Design of the Flock - The way flocks move & react defy easy explanation. The birds are reacting too quickly & precisely, but so do people in groups such as chorus lines. Robbins does bring up boids & swarm intelligence, but he gave too much credence to Rupert Sheldrake, a charlatan who pushes telepathy as the answer. He shouldn't have space in a nonfiction book, but Robbins mentions him several times.

Part II: The Gifts of Birds
Chapter 5: The Power of a Feather an interesting explanation of feathers, their use to birds, how they grow, & how unique they are.

Chapter 6: From Egg to Table, Part One: The Chicken - was interesting for the history of the chicken, but too lopsided. I suggest Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals.

Chapter 7: From Egg to Table, Part Two: Wild Birds - interesting & I like that he's a hunter, if a weekend one. His description of why he likes to hunt is great.

Chapter 8: The Miracle of Guano Pretty good, but he missed a great story with the spread of multiflora rose.

Chapter 9: Nature’s Cleanup Crew birds keeping insects & carrion under control is important.

Part III: Discovering Ourselves Through Birds was interesting, but I didn't find this section very convincing. Similarities can be found in all animals, but he stretched the context in many places. He was also redundant, which made me feel that he really didn't have much information & was stretching it.
Chapter 10: Bird Brain, Human Brain
Chapter 11: The Surprisingly Astute Minds of Ravens and Crows
Chapter 12: The Secret Language of Birds
Chapter 13: The Bee-eaters: A Modern Family
Chapter 14: Extreme Physiologies: Birds, the Ultimate Athletes

Part IV: Birds and the Hope for a Better Future is OK. It is great to work with nature & we should do so whenever feasible, but he ignores the economic & environmental impacts save on the side of being fashionably & superficially 'green'. I doubt he knows how lady bugs are harvested.

Chapter 15: Nature’s Hired Men: Putting Birds to Work I was especially interested in the use of bluebirds in vineyards in place of pesticides, but was surprised at his statement that starlings were their biggest enemy & he specified the use of 1-3/4" holes in their houses. Based on that, I suspected the Western bluebird was bigger, but it's actually a little smaller. I use 1-1/2" holes so starlings won't invade their houses, but sparrows do. (I have about 2 dozen houses on my farm. I've made & dealt with them for several decades now.)

From this point on, there are many interesting facts & ideas, but a lot of crap, too. He's already covered most of the hard science & is into the softer sciences which he cherry-picks to no end.

Chapter 16: The City Bird: From Sidewalk to Sky
Chapter 17: The Transformational Power of Birds
Chapter 18: Birds as Social Workers: I've read a lot of stories like the ones he relates on how working with animals helps criminals. I'm all for it & putting them to meaningful work. I know how being in Pony Club helped our kids grow into good people.

Chapter 19: Expanding Our Senses

Epilogue: The Future of Birds was repetitious. It was pretty much a rehash of what he covered in the last 4 chapters.

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook of this fascinating and well written novel and I found myself pleasantly surprised at how little I knew about the world between humans and birds. Robbins unveiled how birds work together in a migration, to how some birds have a vast vocabulary like the Lyrebird, or how birds can even impact humans on a sociological level especially during war or rehabilitation. The author does a delightful job at laying out the scientific and biological information so effortlessly that any layman or expert will benefit from his stories. I am sad for it to have ended.

[Patricia Kitto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always enjoyed watching birds at my feeders and while out hiking but I’ve never considered myself a proper birder. I may up my game after reading this book and learning more about them! The author does a great job of explaining the scientific research about birds as well as their impact on culture and people’s lives. An easy read with lots of accessible information and unexpected inspiration. I’ve always loved “my wild bird friends” but after reading this book I appreciate all the more the wonder of their complexity and beauty. Even pigeons haha! 🦆🦅🦉🐓🦃🕊

[Nostalgia Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Although I've always loved birds, I've become a much more avid and aware bird nerd bird watcher in the past year, so this book caught my eye when it promised to reveal how important birds are to our lives.

Each chapter focuses on a different species of bird/group of birds and discusses how the bird(s) unique features help out the environment and the human race, or highlights some of their amazing, still not understood feats of endurance. Geese that migrate high over Mt. Everest, bird murmur studies, bird guano, bee-eater's human-like family dramas, and birds/birdwatching as therapy are just some of the multitudes of stories highlighted in Robbins' book. The writing style is incredibly easy to read, the perfect blend of hard facts, interviews, and personal observations. Perfect summer-time reading as you can easily dip in and out of the book, reading a chapter or two here and there as it catches your fancy.

Many of these chapters piqued my interest, and made me more interested in many of the birds, or aspects of birds, that I read about. However, I still had to round down my rating of 3.5 stars because it falls into an information presentation style that I hate: The extremely amazed shock that birds are smart creatures who have personalities, can figure out problems, and are an extremely vital part of the ecosystem. More vital, and possibly even more smarter, than humans.

There's no doubt that many of the facts I learned were quite surprising to me--I found myself thinking "a bird can really do that?!" throughout the book. But I felt like there was an undertone of offense under this all, as if birds being this awesome is offending a fragile human superego. This is a bit of a nit picking issue, as the overall tone takes a positive-neutral pro-bird stance. However, the astonishment seemed past the excited, "whoa, birds are amazing!" to the offended, "how in the world can birds be better than us?"

I also found that, when Robbins discussed the importance and use of birds in indigenous cultures and beliefs, there seemed a disconnect to the importance or relevance of these stories, seeming to be included to meet a requirement rather than a true interest. Traditional stories that were used to complement the facts in some chapters seemed to be brushed aside as "silly" or insignificant--even though the epilogue encourages us to reconnect to nature and to that "oneness" with the earth that these ancient, indigenous cultures still retain.

Despite my irritation with some of the stylistic undertones, I would still recommend this book to any bird or nature lover. It's an excellent way to introduce someone to how wonderful birds can be.

Thank to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review!

(Cross posted on my blog.)

[Jacquelin Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating. I kept having to set bookmarks so that I could read passages to my husband. I have a new appreciation for my feathered friends. Highly recommended.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many interesting aspects and mysteries of birds are presented, more than interesting in fact. Wonderful then. For a serious (or even not-so-serious) 'birder' I suppose a lot would already be known but at my level a lot of the stuff was downright fascinating. I guess my main criticism is how often he ends up viewing birds through the prism of what birds can do for 'us', rather than for their intrinsic value. Much of the research being taken to understand birds by the scientists he extols seems downright cruel and for purposes that to me are questionable. I was sickened by the 'scientist' who removes Zebra finch brains (humanely, of course) so he can study how they create bird songs. Is that really necessary? I am sure they would say yes, blah, blah. But so much research seems to be about helping humans, not birds. Such as how they basically kidnap birds and torture them to figure how they navigate in migration. Yes, it's interesting but at no small cost to the birds themselves. He ends up with several chapters on ethno-ornithology and other ways to view birds. Interesting stuff, but of course western civilization 'bad' and native cultures 'good' (he is a NYT writer after all). Yet he has no problem driving and jetting all over the planet for his stories. But in this book it mostly comes back to us and how we can use birds to heal our selves mentally and emotionally. Not saying there is not a lot of wisdom there but it just got wearying toward the end.

[Mila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating facts about birds are presented in an easy to grasp format. I was shocked by Tesla's "love" of pigeons, horrified by the treatment of chickens (even though it's not new information), intrigued by the language of chickadees, but not surprised by the intelligence of corvids. WONDERful!

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this from beginning to end. The chapters are usually short, and the book begins with simply some of the wonder of birds (as the title suggests). Gradually it becomes more and more focussed on the particular aspects of birds that make them important for us to understand, both in terms of our own human interactions as well as their impact on the larger natural world. The book makes an excellent case for the protection of all birds, both in our own self interest and in the interest of the larger ecosystem, but it is never scoldy or preachy. It appeals to love rather than fear.

[Maggies_lens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good. Lost stars simply because it was so incredibly US-centric. While the subject is relevant everywhere in the world, basically nowhere else in the world is mentioned. Not being an American, it made it feel extremely single-dimensioned and flat. There's a line in there about being distracted by a pretty shell while ignoring the ocean in front of you, that is how this sort of felt. Otherwise, very enjoyable read.

[Nick Rolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic journey describing the extremely diverse range of nature's wonderful flying creatures, describing incredible statistics about how flocks maintain their form, how birds can handle the most extreme conditions, and how ravens and crows have evolved intelligence and emotional states. The statistics were incredible about the sheer stamina of birds during migration and how we can learn about ourselves by observing the lifestyles of birds such as the bee eater.

[Truncarlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grunt og for antroposentrisk

[Acho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! as I have read the book, probably I looked like crazy on the street always my eyes in the sky or the ground, watching birds, and wondering why I have never seen them that way before the way I see it now

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

nonfiction 598. 05/2017 library. Picking up, reading random facts, I then checked it out. Fascinating bits and pieces of information . Line drawings per chapter, historical links, quotes from famous individuals all related to birds form prehistoric to yesterday. Not a bird watcher guide, but rather exactly what the title tells us.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, The World and a Better Future by Jim Robbins will have you reading out loud to your spouses, friends and family. Having read a lot about bird psychology, habits, and about different kinds of birds, there is still so much to learn about them.

The author divides his book into five different sections: What Birds Tell Us About the Natural World, The Gifts of Birds, Discovering Ourselves Through Birds and Birds and Hope for a Better Future. In those sections are several chapters each. In each section, I have a few favorite chapters. For example in the first section, A Murmuring of Birds: The Extraordinary Design of the Flock. I was very excited to see this chapter because, I have a lot of memories of sitting on a concrete bench after work waiting for my husband to pick me up from work. On some days, I saw hundreds of black birds fly in front of the building and take sharp turns suddenly and never being off with a lone bird in the flock. Essentially it was a long ballet of birds that went on for at least an hour. Why they seeming turn in unison and never make a mistake? How did they all know their own part in the ballet? Unfortunately once I was really caught up in this intricate moving geometry of dance, someone who sit down beside me and interrupt my wonder with conversation! The authors goes into the research about all the variables of flock movement. The more you read, the more fascinating it becomes.

That is just one of my reactions, I have many to this informative book about birds. There are so fascinating facts about different birds are covered. There were many times that I put this book down and connected with my past memories of birds or just stopped to muse about how amazing birds are.

The reading is very comfortable. Even some things codes be very technical, he never let my interest wilt. My love of birds is just much stronger. I was disappointed that he hunts birds but I will forgive him that for this book. My only plea to him is to please hunt with the camera instead of a gun.

I highly recommend this book to all bird lovers.

I received this Advance Reading Copy of the above book from the publisher by a win from FirstReads. My thoughts and feelings in this review are totally my own.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many cool stories and interesting facts about birds jammed in here. There was certainly some crossover with The Genius of Birds but that's okay - it takes me multiple repeats to learn things! The bottom line is the importance of the ecosystem and the peril that many bird populations are in. So many interesting things - the complexity of the chickadee's bird call; the importance of vultures in India with dead bodies (people and animals); the learning of navigation after the first generation (but we don't know how) and the crow's tool making (I learned this one before).

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly wonderful – and very approachable – non-fiction book that is exactly what its title purports it to be: all about the wonder of birds. Robbins collects not only familiar anecdotes about the more popular bird species, but includes a fairly wide variety of birds and interesting (and sometimes shocking) facts and other fascinating tidbits. He really does a terrific job of intersecting human and avian history into an incredibly readable format. There are chapters here that dip into all of my favorite birds – from hummingbirds to corvids to owls and more. The style of the book is perhaps not one that is intended to be read all at once (it can get a little repetitive at times, though almost in a conversational way, so it isn’t really aggravating – and probably not noticeable at all if you set this down for more than a few hours at a time!). Either way, it is a completely interesting read that skirts some political issues without falling into more controversial parts (there are some easily laid stepping stones into more hot-button topics that Robbins astutely avoids). It’s really a wonderful read and one that I can’t recommend highly enough! It keeps the story very human, too, while highlighting these wonderful creatures (bird-owners may be the only ones a bit disappointed – there isn’t much about birds as pets here). I think it’s an amazing read, and completely lived into my expectations! I just love it!

[Kelsie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love learning about nature/animals/birds, so I was super excited to win this book through Goodreads giveaways. I was a little disappointed though because much of the book discusses birds in relation to humans (how we benefit, learn, utilize, and depend on them). I was expecting less of an anthropocentric perspective and more of an overview of the amazing and unique qualities of birds.

Also, while most of the book was well written, there are a few word choices/phrases that lessened the overall quality of writing and status as an intellectual nonfiction book. It also saddened me to learn that the author was a bird hunter (he discussed his identity as a primal being when he hunts) and the extent of the content that talks about how birds are expendable commodities (ex. ostrich farming/meat industry/hunting, experiments/study, use as pest control, etc.)

Overall, I learned a lot about several different types of birds as well as their contributions to humans throughout history and cultures.

[Melinda M · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us about Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future by Jim Robbins shows the way that birds and humans benefit each other. Each Chapter covers different attributes of birds. He covers such things a the broiler belt in the US and does so with straight talk as well as a honest telling of what happens. I found it interesting but could have done with less preaching about things such as climate change and philosophy. It was not as much about different birds as the action with humans and birds. The language was easy to follow.

I received a copy thru a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Matthew Tyas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting mix of biology, zoology and spirituality. A championing cry for the healing power of walking amongst nature (and especially birds).

I don’t think I believe all of it, but I found a good deal of this book to be compelling (as a fairly agnostic person). I absolutely do agree with the power of getting out into the countryside and taking in nature, there’s something profoundly soothing about it.

On top of that there’s tonnes of cool bird facts, and stories and anecdotes of people who live, work and befriend birds.

Well worth a read even if birds and nature aren’t normally your thing.

[Natalie K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book overall. I've always loved birds (shoutout to my beloved parakeets, even though they aren't on the internet!) and it was really interesting learning about all the amazing things birds can do. I liked the chapters about bird behavior and birds eating bugs. Less pleasant were the ones about humans eating birds and performing certain experiments on them. The author's style is very readable and the book is a quick read for nonfiction. I'd definitely recommend it—but be warned, you may never want to eat chicken again after reading this!

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book! I have long been a bird nerd. This book so perfectly encapsulated the things that make birds so fascinating and amazing. It expressed so well, what birds do for my spirit. I even learned a few new things about birds that I was unaware of before. In short, I loved it. Excellent read. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of birds and to anyone who's not. It is a great eye-opener to the fantastic world of birds and what they mean to us and the natural world.

[Roger Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beaufully researched, if limited perspective of the birds in our lives. Full of fascinating avian trivia, this was a fun book. Wish Mr. Robbins could have included information about sea birds and the mighty condor, but very happy with his final product. Managed to buy a signed copy from the author at our local indie book store :-)

[Charles Yanofsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bird-Human co-dependence.


Book full of teachable anecdotes. How much richer we are for knowing birds.non-encyclopedic we learn by example about a universe of birds. Gained a lot by reading it. Highly recommended.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A five star book until the preaching took over. Philosophy, global climate change, troubled kids and lots of boring bits at the end. He should have stuck to the birds the entire book and it would have earned a five star rating.

[Sylvia Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fascinating! I wanted to chase people around, reading them bits out of the book, asking, "Did you know THIS?" Birds can tell us the most amazing stories, about ourselves and the world, and they can lift up our hearts on their wings. Read it!

[Geoff Walling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book with a bad title. It uses birds as examples to enlighten the reader about many things. This book was a great discovery because it was on the bottom of the pile because I thought it would be about birdwatching or something like that.

[Seawitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful book with lots of fascinating information about birds and even bird neurobiology. Loved the thought of birds and reconnecting with nature as a way to heal.