Colin Tudge

The first third was quite good. The second third was a slog. The final third was good enough (barely) to keep me reading to the end. Essentially, the bulk of the interesting material was covered better by other books I've read over the last couple of years (e.g., [b:The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World|28256439|The Hidden Life of Trees What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World|Peter Wohlleben|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464281905s/28256439.jpg|48295241], [b:A Natural History of North American Trees|567816|A Natural History of North American Trees|Donald Culross Peattie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348962010s/567816.jpg|554885], [b:The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature's Great Connectors|31522121|The Songs of Trees Stories from Nature's Great Connectors|David George Haskell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474519192s/31522121.jpg|52206884]).… (more)

I love birds and love reading about them but this book was just okay. The author repeats himself a lot (especially "some birds are more equal than others" and especially this phrase in the first chapter. It was fun at first but it quickly just got annoying). This book had some fun anecdotes but it was missing something and could have used some references as he keeps crossing the line between fact and opinion without stating where it changes. Especially since he states at the start that he is not actually scientist. He does provide a (partial?) reference list at the end but some statements really need the study/studies backing them up in the text itself. I don't have time to go through all of them to fact check and find out what has been shown and what he thinks.

Also, I don't really understand the need for such a long list of bird families. He really didn't provide much information about most of them. I also wonder how much the editors actually read this part in detail as I had a look at the starlings (since I have spent a lot of time studying them) and after about two sentences he says - but more on this later. This family is only briefly mentioned once or twice more in the book. I didn't see anything factually incorrect in the parts I did read (based on the then data since things have changed a bit since then) but small things like this bothered me.

While not bad and I'm sure bird lovers will still enjoy this book, I would recommend reading other books on bird behaviour over this one.… (more)