Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration

Science writer Heisman debuts with a winning examination of the seasonal movements of birds, tracing how scientific understanding of bird migration has evolved and detailing the technologies that ornithologists employ to study them today. Highlighting improbable theories proposed throughout history, she notes that Aristotle believed some “winter and summer residents were in fact the same birds in different plumages,” a 16th-century Swedish priest thought swallows hibernated at the bottom of lakes, and an English minister postulated that birds wintered on the moon. Contemporary scientists, the author notes, track flocks via radar and search for clues about where a bird traveled from by analyzing deuterium (“a very special type of hydrogen atom”) isotopes in feathers and matching them to regional variations in deuterium levels. She profiles the ornithologists behind these advances and tells how, for instance, evolutionary biologist Thomas Smith built on genome-sequencing technology to map genetic variation in warblers, finding that distinct genetic groups follow different migratory routes. Heisman pulls off the impressive feat of making technical discussions of genome sequencing and isotope analysis accessible, and the profiles offer revealing glimpses into the process and production of scientific knowledge. Admirers of Scott Weidensaul’s A World on the Wing will find this a treat. (Mar.)