The Social Lives of Birds

(Paperback)

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'If I were to read any book on what birds are all about, I could not recommend one more than this one' - Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven

Birds, like most of us, are social creatures. In groups they can do things they'd never be able to do alone. Be that evading predators or raising young, together birds collaborate, cooperate and connect.

But every group has its conflicts, and living together can come with a cost. Competing for food, mates and nests, life in a group can be hard and sometimes dangerous.

From nest hijacking and thievery to seduction, dancing and secret relationships, The Social Lives of Birds discovers the various ways birds socialise. Revealing the different types of bird groups and the ornithologists who study them, professor of biology and birder Joan E. Strassmann combines the latest research on and her own experiences of birds navigating social dilemmas.

'Delightful and informative' - Lee Dugatkin, author of How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)

Reviews

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
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, author 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
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

Author Bio

Joan E. Strassmann is a professor of biology and award-winning teacher of animal behaviour. She is the author of Slow Birding: the Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard, published in 2022 by TarcherPerigee, PRH. She has been a slow birder for decades and is on the board of the St. Louis Audubon Society. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has held a Guggenheim fellowship. She lives with her husband in St. Louis, Missouri.