What the Robin Knows

This book taught me how to watch birds. 

Many bird books aim to teach about birds and how they live, conveying factual information while ignoring (or lamenting) our human interactions with them. There are also books about birding, telling picaresque stories of extreme birdwatching adventures, or delving into technical minutiae aimed at maximizing one’s skill at bird identification. This book doesn’t fall into either of those categories; instead, it focuses on the rich and positive rewards of paying attention to birds. 

What was that sound? Why did those birds all fly up into the tree? What will I discover if… show more.

I first encountered this book while taking a wildlife tracking class that Jon Young had a hand in creating. I was awe-struck by the stories Young tells in What the Robin Knows. He has learned from years of patience and still observation to find animals in the forest and to know how each animal like an owl, hawk, coyote, or the neighborhood cat, is moving on the landscape by listening to the vocalizations and watching the behavior of local birds, like the ubiquitous Robin. This is a perfect book to read if you are longing to re-create your connection with… show more.