Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World

Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World

by Tim Low
Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World

Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World

by Tim Low

Hardcover

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Overview

An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution

Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries.
 
From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300221664
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 09/27/2016
Pages: 424
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Tim Low is a field biologist, writer, environmental consultant, and wildlife photographer. He is the prize-winning author of six previous books, including Feral Future and The New Nature, and a frequent contributor to Wildlife Australia magazine. He lives in Brisbane, Australia.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Yale Edition ix

Introduction 1

1 Food Worth Defending 7

Sugar Fuels Noise 8

Successful Trees 13

Climate Survivors 13

Ancient Pollination 19

Where the Big Birds Are 21

Accessible Nectar 23

2 Forests that Exude Energy 32

Special Foods 35

The Forest Dominators 44

The Ultimate Aggressor 49

The Dawn of Group Defence 54

3 The First Song 58

Northern Orthodoxy 58

Forward Thinking 61

Early Musicians 73

The Australian Way 79

4 New Guinea: Australia's Northern Province 88

Rainforest Finds a New Home 94

What the Birds Reveal 96

Placing New Guinea 100

Australian Birds Shown in New Ways 103

5 Land of Parrots 106

Aptitude with Attitude 110

Parrots as Problems 113

Parrots as Pets 118

Trees that Store Seed 121

Southern Origins 127

6 The Last of the Forest Giants 133

Birds that Kick 133

Gigantism 141

Ecosystem Services 147

Conserving Difficult Birds 150

7 Australia as a Centre of Origin 152

Biogeography as Embarrassing Science 154

Waterrowl and Landfowl 156

Dodos and Hummingbirds 161

South or North? 164

Australia's Sister Lands 170

Australia as a Centre 176

8 The Forest Makers 181

Asian Immigrants 183

Almost Perfect Dispersal 185

More Fruit Couriers 194

Seed Highways 197

Unwelcome Forest Making 203

9 Of Grass and Fire 206

Grass-assisted Invasion 208

The Volatility of Savanna 213

Fire 215

When Grass is Eaten 224

Grasses as Shrubs 226

Uncertainties Rule 228

Fiery Future 230

10 Life in a Liquid Landscape 232

Sleeping on Air 233

Made to Formula 236

The Great South Wind 238

The New Zealand Factor 241

Ending Isolation 244

Adaptability and Vulnerability 247

Seabirds' Services 249

Seabirds in Trees 251

11 A Continent Compared 254

Living with Aggression 257

Nectar Niches 259

Absence as Opportunity 265

Recent Arrivals 270

Birds that Remain Surprising 272

Birds Around the World 276

12 People and Birds 281

Mutronbirds 283

Early Exploitation 288

Taking by Europeans 288

Gondwanan Pets 293

Protecting Assets 295

Study as Taking 297

Conservation and the Lyrebird 301

Modern Relationships 304

The Ecology of Feeding 309

Birds Into the Future 313

Notes 319

Bibliography 362

Acknowledgements 378

Photo Credits 379

Index 380

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