TABLE OF CONTENTS: List of illustrations vii
Preface ix
Chapter 1: Wondering about birds
Shingle Street -- Witnesses and prophets -- Birds and ourselves 1
Chapter 2: Amusive birds: Attraction and association
Horsey -- Favourites and fancies -- Meanings and masks -- Charisma and beyond 28
Chapter 3: Seeing a difference
Isles of Scilly -- Distinctions and differences -- Species and individuals -- Observing and perceiving -- Illusion and self-deception -- Patterns, profiles, and all that jizz 54
Chapter 4: Rarity value
Central Park -- The listing habit -- Collection and possession -- The hunting instinct -- Extreme pursuits -- Discovery and diversity 80
Chapter 5: Beauty and the beholder
Volga Delta -- Signs of life -- Image and imagination -- Colour and form -- Art and nature 109
Chapter 6: The sense of sound
Little Thurlow -- Sound and silence -- Sounds different -- Signs of sound -- "And the winner is . . . " -- The sound of music 145
Chapter 7: A time and a place
Flannan Isles -- The sense of a season -- Birds in a landscape 182
Chapter 8: Wild nature: The politics of preference
Old Hall Marshes -- Disturbance and disorientation -- Intervention
and conservation -- Belonging? 207
Chapter 9: Naming matters
Kakadu -- What's in a name? -- Facts and fancies: Naming the birds -- Invention and discovery -- Regulation and resistance:
The Esperanto illusion 229
Chapter 10: Birds are good to think with
Delphi -- A bird told me -- Signs and symbols -- Eagles and
emblems -- Why birds? -- Seeing what you believe -- Like a bird 262
Envoi: "Stirred for a bird"
Shingle Street 297
Appendix 1: Some notable lists: The Sumerians, Thomas Jefferson, John Clare 303
Appendix 2: Birds and bonnets: A New York hat story 310
Appendix 3: Nightingale mysteries 312
Appendix 4: Some Australian bird names 318
Reference matter: Abbreviations -- Notes, sources, and further reading 323
Index of birds 347
General index 355
Acknowledgements and permissions 365
Return to Book Description File created: 4/25/2013 | 
