As the outdoor reading season opens, Stutchbury’s new, informal work on bird behavior just begs to be read under a backyard tree. The book could serve as beach reading too; marine birds such as the albatross and rhinoceros auklet put in appearances. But Stutchbury, a biologist at York University in Toronto, has done much of her research on songbirds, and tales of their behavior form the heart of the book.
Stutchbury examines big issues in the family life of any species — courtship, kids, infidelity and so on — and describes relevant research projects. Some examples come from her own work with her husband, evolutionary biologist Gene Morton, and some from other scientists.
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