The Love Lives of Birds: Courting and Mating Rituals

Erickson (Identifying Birds of Prey), science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, takes an entertaining and lighthearted look at various bird species’ mating habits. She begins with Adélie Penguins, whose females prize stone collecting, and concludes with Wilson’s Phalaropes, dainty shorebirds that “turn our expectations of sex roles entirely on their head.” Her title chapters (and the accompanying text) are wry as well as illuminating. “This Old House,” for example, references the PBS program and deals with bald eagles, which tend to “construct their nests to last generations.” “Living in Jane Austen’s World” focuses on black-capped chickadees, whose tightly regimented and intricate social lives, spent flying within “a small circle of acquaintances season after season, year after year,” are likened to those of Austen’s characters. Other particularly entertaining sections include “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “When I’m Sixty-Four.” The former offers gossip on eastern bluebirds, whose “extra-pair mating” habits evoke soap-opera shenanigans, while the latter celebrates how Laysan albatrosses “maintain their commitment to their mate” over long absences (unlike certain Beatles, she notes). Terrific color illustrations by Veronica Lilja add to the fun. Bird enthusiasts and nature lovers in general shouldn’t miss this. (Oct.)