The Social Lives of Birds

“For those of us drawn to watch birds, few aspects are more awe-inspiring and mind-blowing than their propensity to live with others of their clan. Strassmann digs deep into the fascinating social world of birds, bringing a scientist’s critical eye and a novelist’s sharp pen to interpret and understand its dizzying diversity.”—John M. Marzluff, coauthor of Gifts of the Crow

“Joan Strassmann knows the social life of birds almost as well as birds do. A delightful and informative flight into sociality in our avian friends.”—Lee Dugatkin, author of How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)

“The main features of birds most of us are interested in concern their feathers, flight, nesting, feeding, foraging, mating, predator evasion, migration, and group vs. solitary behavior. If I were to read any book on what birds are all about, I could not recommend one more than this one. I know of no other book that so thoroughly covers the hugely extensive scientific literature from the experts who spend their lives and fortunes on their work. This book is a must-read for all birders and a clear-eyed pleasure for anyone interested in Nature.”—Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven

“In this elegant and masterful treatment of avian life, the biologist Joan Strassmann makes it abundantly clear that the proverb ‘birds of a feather flock together’ is one massive understatement. Birds variously pair up, lek, roost, form colonies, team up to assist the parent, breed communally, and turn super-social. She will intrigue the novice while transporting even the most knowledgeable bird lover in fresh and unexpected directions.”—Mark Moffett, author of The Human Swarm

“Birds of a feather not only flock together, but sleep, feed, migrate, mate, and raise young together, too. Sometimes birds move about and live together with only their own species and sometimes they are in mixed flocks. Joan Strassmann, a world-leading scientist on the communal lives of diverse lineages of life on Earth, clearly explains the benefits and costs of the different ways in which birds spend time together. Her easy-to-follow writing is based on scientific findings from peer-reviewed literature, and it takes us from parasitic cowbirds in the Americas to penguins in Antarctica and drongos in India. The world, as she explains, is a more interesting place, because we humans share so much with birds when it comes to living and loving together.”—Mark Hauber, author of Bird Day

“If you wish to know more about the birds around you—or ones you may never have the chance to see—and why they do what they do, read this book. Strassmann has distilled the enormous scientific literature on bird social behavior and made it available to all of us. Cooperate or compete? Live alone or join a colony? Favor relatives or non-relatives? Choose immediate gains or invest in the future? Shaped by natural and kin selection, and the environments they live in, birds navigate all these challenges in extraordinarily diverse ways. Here is your opportunity to travel around the world with Strassmann and meet the scientists who labor happily in the field and come away entertained and enlightened.”—Ellen Ketterson, author of Snowbird

“By weaving together her own personal stories with the ecological and evolutionary insights gleaned from long-term studies of avian species from around the world, Strassmann introduces us to the wonderfully complex and varied social lives of birds. This book is a must read for anyone interested in learning about not only why the birds we often see or hear behave the way that they do, but also how the scientists who have studied them for the past century helped uncover these social secrets.”—Dustin Rubenstein, author of Animal Behavior, 12th Edition

“In vivid explanations of complex bird behavior, Strassmann makes the ordinary—vultures roosting in a tree, swallows soaring by a riverbank—extraordinary. She also makes the extraordinary—prancing prairie chickens, albatross living in colonies of thousands—understandable, using the lens of evolution. From American Robins to Taiwan Yuhinas, this book is a celebration of birds and the scientists who study them, both working harder than we can imagine.”—Marlene Zuk, author of Paleofantasy

“A leading expert on social wasps and social amoebae brings to bear her expertise and passion to the social world of birds. The result is a fascinating guided tour of the many mysteries of bird life and glimpses of their probable solutions—why birds flock during the day, sleep in communal roosts at night, forage with other species, nest in crowded colonies, breed communally, mate in leks, or outside the pair bond, care for young not their own, and quarrel with their siblings and parents. Highly recommended for the expert and the novice, and especially for bird watchers.”
—Raghavendra Gadagkar, author of Survival Strategies

“Why do birds join flocks, nest in sprawling colonies, or tend to eggs that are not their own? Using global examples, from mixed-species groups in Finland to families of Pinyon jays in the American southwest, Strassmann carefully unpacks the motivations behind avian social behaviors. A mix of personal observation, interviews with experts, and a review of the scientific literature, this is a fascinating and informative read.”—Jonathan C. Slaght, author of Owls of the Eastern Ice

“This book is for anyone who’s ever been intrigued by a flock of starlings, a colony of seabirds, a murder of crows, or any of the other diverse ways birds get together. Strassmann effortlessly weaves the communal lives of birds with the science and the scientists whose studies have revealed the drivers of their behavior. The stories she tells provide fascinating insights into the world of animal behavior.”—Walter Koenig, co-author of Ecology and Evolution of Cooperative Breeding in Birds