也是一只自由泳的小鸟
“Extreme behavior in birds is more likely in Australia than anywhere else.” Australian birds occupy more ecological niches than birds anywhere on earth. They tend to be longer lived and more intelligent than birds on other continents. Also, Australia is where some fundamental aspects of bird being were born. Like song.
想去澳洲看鸟
#TheBirdWay #读书
birds pack more brain cells into a smaller space. When the team counted the number of neurons in the brains of twenty-eight different bird species ranging in size from the pint-size zebra finch to the six-foot-tall emu, they found that birds have higher neuron counts in their small brains than do mammals or even primates of similar brain size. Neurons in bird brains are much smaller, more numerous, and more densely packed than those in mammalian and primate brains. This tight arrangement of neurons makes for efficient high-speed sensory and nervous systems. In other words, say the researchers, bird brains have the potential to provide much higher cognitive clout per pound than do mammalian brains.
鸟类的视锥细胞也是 densely packed, 好厉害呀
https://www.quantamagazine.org/hyperuniformity-found-in-birds-math-and-physics-20160712/
Ornithological vision has been skewed not just by the hemispheric bias of researchers but also by their gender and gender bias. Until quite recently, most ornithologists were men, and research tended to focus on what male birds were up to; the part played by female birds in the life histories of their species, from female ornamental traits to breeding systems, was often downplayed or ignored.
这点是我没想到的，怎么男科学家对雌性鸟类不感兴趣吗？男人研究男人是为了造福自己我还能理解，怎么研究别的物种的时候也要带入自己吗。。
Some songbirds have such fine control over the multiple muscles in both sides of their syrinx that they can produce different sounds at the same time, in essence, singing a duet with themselves.
好厉害！！
目前觉得这本书还挺好的，但是作为一本介绍鸟类的书过于 human-centric 了，举几个例子：
“These penguins can dive deeper and longer than any other bird and can tolerate extremely low levels of oxygen in their blood—far below those that would render a human unconscious.”
“Bar-headed geese sustain the high oxygen demands of flight in air that is so thin that even the most elite human athletes can barely walk in it.”
“collaborate on tasks in a way we previously thought was possible only in humans.”
“It was once thought that the hearing of birds was limited to a smaller frequency range than human hearing.”
“spontaneity and diversity of movement to music are not uniquely human.”
“These more precisely coordinated, complex duets are the closest analogue we have in the animal world to the structure of human conversation.”
？？到底为什么大大小小的事都要拿来跟人类比啊？人类是全能吗？是标杆吗？你物种多样性比得上动物吗，就在这里乱猜测乱惊讶。人类，不行。
读到鸟儿能在危险来临的时候发出警告，而警告声里包含丰富的信号，包括捕食者是在陆地上还是在空中、体型是大还是小。而人类在危险来临的时候貌似只会尖叫，尖叫声里不包含任何有效信息。但在山区和丛林里就不一样了，那里的人们会用口哨和歌唱声来传达信息。
我读到这儿想的就是人类也没那么烂嘛，只不过有些技能只在特定环境下才需要而已。
结果作者紧接着：
If humans can encode all those specific messages in whistles, why not birds?
我惊呆了，这说的什么屁话啊，感情刚才举的人类例子仅仅是为了帮助理解鸟儿的能力啊？不是，鸟儿有点厉害技能这么让人不能理解吗？真就一定要跟人类比啊？反过来说，if birds can fly, why not humans? 这话有任何逻辑吗？
虽然书里的知识很好，但我也太不喜欢这个作者的视角了。
人类啊，啧啧啧，能不能不要这么自以为是