Lawrence Kilham was a Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union, professor of microbiology emeritus of Dartmouth Medical School, and a distinguished virologist. He passed away in 2000. "This definitive study is a gem for both American birders and serious ornithologists." --The Indianapolis News " . . . remarkable behaviors are reviewed and discussed with a rich assortment of anecdotes from the author's 8,000 hours of field observations. . . . This book explains especially the social systems of these birds, from cooperative breeding to predator mobbing. Difficult topics such as 'play' and...

Lawrence Kilham begins this remarkable book with a simple premise: surely there are many people who aren't scientists who nevertheless take great satisfaction from observing nature and the creatures that inhabit it. Eschewing species lists and the charts-and-graphs approach of professional ornithologists and competitive birders, Kilham's "On Watching Birds" elegantly balances the aesthetic and humanistic with the scientific. The author offers a philosophy of embracing nature through discovery rather than a methodology for categorizing it.
"Watch everything," Kilham advises the novice, for...