Bird day A story of 24 hours and 24 avian lives

What do birds do all day long?" Ecology professor Hauber answers this question by taking an hour-by-hour, worldwide tour of two dozen bird species and examining how they live their lives. Beginning at midnight with the barn owl, the author tells of a bird that can hunt in total darkness, finding its prey using only its sense of hearing. At one in the morning, he finds New Zealand's little spotted kiwi using its sense of smell to locate earthworms, while the oilbird of South America finds its cave nest at two a.m. by using a clicking sonar to navigate. As Hauber moves through the 24-hour cycle, the reader learns of flightless nocturnal parrots using their sense of smell to find fruit, nightingales wooing their mates with beautiful nocturnal songs, parasitic cowbird females sneaking eggs into other birds' nests at dawn, pochard ducks sleeping with one careful eye open, and emperor penguins breeding in the South Pole's winter darkness. Short vignettes about each bird are beautifully illustrated with Tony Angell's lively drawings, bringing the wonders of bird behavior to life.

City University of New York neurobiologist Hauber (The Book of Eggs) brings together meager sketches of 24 birds, with each entry pegged to what the species might be doing at a given hour of the day. He begins at midnight with barn owls, discussing how their nighttime hunts for rodents are assisted by their asymmetrical ears, which are located at different heights on their head and allow them to "perceive subtle changes in the direction and strength" of noises. Progressing through the day, Hauber notes that male silvereyes sing loudly in the early morning to boast about their fitness, and that female common cuckoos will sneak into other birds' nests to lay eggs while the parents are away in the afternoon. Other bird/hour combinations appear largely arbitrary, as when Hauber dedicates his 11 a.m. slot to discussing how common pochards "have developed a special type of slumber called 'unihemispheric sleep' " in which one half of the brain is always awake to scan for predators. Unfortunately, each selection offers only a superficial overview of a single piece of trivia about the given bird, and the environmental asides are shallow: "As we consider places to build, we ought to look and assess what other life is already using the territory around us." Slight and insubstantial, this doesn't get off the ground. (Sept.)

Hearing the scurry of a vole on the forest floor, we see a barn owl emerge from the darkness to catch its prey. Unless you summer in the Far North or South, midnight represents deep darkness for plants and animals, including humans. Some species certainly embrace the night; they rely on scents, sounds, and even Earth's magnetic field to find their way. But as most birds depend on sight, you might expect a sleepy, dark start to our bird day. No! Many birds thrive at this time, including owls that have evolved to orient themselves and hunt for their prey in the dimmest of lights. There is perhaps no better example than the barn owl. Barn owls live pretty much everywhere except Antarctica. But do not take that to mean they are uninteresting. Barn owls can hunt in total darkness. They hear the subtle noises made by voles, mice, rats, and other rodents and can locate them as they rush through the nighttime leaf litter. This requires the owls themselves to be quiet--and they are, flying so silently while hunting that they are able to pick up the softest of sounds from below. Barn owls look relatively large, but their bodies are no bigger or heavier than that of a dove. They are just covered in extra-soft feathers to minimize noise during flight. Large wings and a light body also allow this quieter, slower flight. With these wings, the owls can even hover as they pinpoint their potential prey in the ground cover. Hearing is one thing, but how do barn owls locate their prey in the dark? Unlike many other owls that have symmetrical ears, the orientation of feathers on the barn owl's face helps direct sound toward their ears, which are located at different heights. The differing heights help barn owls better perceive subtle changes in the direction and strength of the noises coming from a mouse or vole. This allows them to hear and even create three-dimensional mental maps--matching a sound with the distance to its source, above or below. Thankfully, tonight is dry. Night rain is the enemy of the barn owl. It dampens their feathers, making flight less quiet, and adds background noise as it falls on the leaf litter, masking the sounds of small mammals scuttering on the ground.   Excerpted from Bird Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Avian Lives by Mark E. Hauber All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.