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• Contents
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• Author Bio

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