The Wisdom of Birds by Tim Birkhead

The subtitle is "An Illustrated History of Ornithology". It has an interesting approach to approaching that subjext, looking at what the author argues is the most influential ornithologist of all time – John Ray. He was a late 17th century English naturalist who wrote some very influential books. Birkhead believes that Ray “was the turning point”, and that his ideas “launched the study of modern ornithology”. The most important thing he changed was going from studying birds in captivity to studying birds not in captivity to learn about their behavior--this seems so obvious, and it led to a burst of knowledge, but it is clearly easier to capture them than to find them in the wild and follow them! This book walks the reader through the range of topics that comprise modern ornithology, going through what used to be thought occurred and then what we know now. It also includes a good number of high-quality reproductions of vintage paintings and diagrams. Ranging in origin from the medieval period through the early 20th century, they depict birds and activities mentioned in the text. As someone who is just scratching the surface on the biology of birds, I learned a lot.