Jim Robbins - The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future

No wild animal lives so freely and in such variety and numbers among humans as do birds. For that reason alone, our relationship to them is unlike our connection to any other wild creature. But there are other reasons, too. The intellect of birds is arguably the closest in the animal world to our own. Birds charm us with their ethereal songs, which are profoundly different from the sound of any other animal; in fact, some of the natural worlds most beautiful sounds emerge from the tiniest of birds. They are found virtually everywhere, from the Arctic and Antarctic to the tropics and deserts to the concrete labyrinths at the heart of the worlds cities and the green patches of grass in front of our homes, and they are natures exclamation point, adding an unequaled burst of vibrancy to our lives. Birds came to the earth, an Australian legend has it, when a rainbow shattered and its shards of color turned into birds as they fell: the glowing, jewel-like reds, greens, and blues of the hummingbirds; the bold red, white, and black of the woodpeckers; the deep blue of bluebirds and indigo buntings; the slash of red on the shoulders of red-winged blackbirds and the full suit of red worn by cardinals.

I am in awe of birds. I knew something about them going into this project, yet after more than two years of reading scientific studies, talking with scientists and laymen, and visiting winemakers, zookeepers, bird-watchers, falconers, artists, costume designers, Native Americans, and animal activists, I discovered that these feathered creatures play an almost unfathomably wide range of roles in the human enterprise.

My interest lies in how we have interpreted birds, and how we might enhance our interpretation to help us understand more about ourselves and the world around us. For centuries, for example, birds have been used to help us understand flight and to create new designs for better and more efficient aircraft. Running and climbing baby partridges offer a glimpse into how the first flying dinosaurs left the ground, and the molecular tracings through the brain of a singing baby bird are a proxy for understanding the biology of the first babbles from a human infant. Want to know how Machiavellian power relationships among humans evolved? Look to the deceptions and alliances that take place within a flock of cunning ravens. Why are human stepfamilies more at risk for incest and other dysfunction than biological families? Families of white-fronted bee-eaters in the desert cliffs of Kenya, who are no strangers to illicit desire, can help answer this question. Murmurations, those mysterious and synchronous flying clouds of birds that mesmerize us as they swirl through a late afternoon sky in autumn, might hold the secret to an undiscovered fundamental force in physics.

One of the most important things birds do is remind us of our deep and abiding emotional connection to nature. In Washington, D.C., I witnessed Harriss hawks and bald eagles turn drug dealers and high school dropouts into passionate falconers. What is going on in our hearts and brains when we observe these creatures? What moves people to spend hundreds of dollars a year feeding birds in their backyard, or thousands to travel the world to watch them? Throughout history, birds have been strongly allied with mystical properties. Might birds, then, also have things to tell us that science has yet to consider? Birds push the boundaries of science, for example, by raising the big question of whether these highly complex beings have minds of their own. The idea of a sentient world beyond the human realm is not as far out as it has been thought to be. Panpsychism (literally, mind everywhere), the idea that the world and everything in it is conscious, is one of philosophys oldest doctrines. It held sway until the twentieth century, when logical thinking took over and asserted the notion of human exceptionalism. But some scientists are rethinking this notion.

How can we divine an understanding of such a conscious world? Largely through birds. Ethno-ornithologists who study the relationship between the worlds indigenous people and birds, and also the few scientists whose work at times questions the fundamental assumptions that we believe control the workings of our universe, tell us tales of alternative worlds and radically different modes of perception in which people are woven into the fabric of nature and birds are not just objects but fellow travelers, and sometimes even family.

Our society is unparalleled in understanding and appreciating material science, accumulating hard drives, clouds, and folders full of knowledge. But knowledge breaks the world into pieces, while wisdom makes it whole. Bird flight can be about air currents and velocity and wing loading, but it can also be about something unquantifiable, something transcendent and miraculous. We are sorely deficient in wisdom, lacking a view of how all of these pieces of knowledge connect to make the world a better place.