White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Tree Swallows

This book is just a record of the author's observations of tree swallow nests he has set up on his property. It is interesting if you are interested in tree swallows. It is also an interesting observation of how the author sets out to test the role of feather color in selection. If you want to understand more about nesting behavior of tree swallows you will enjoy this book. Otherwise it can be rather a dry read.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of tree swallow courtship, mating, and rearing young. The author does a great job of explaining everything in detail, so you can easily visualize what happened at any time.However, I was very uncomfortable with the actions that the author took in his "study." I put study in quotes because as a professional conservation biologist with decades of wildlife research experience, I was shocked by the haphazard and irresponsible actions the author says that he engaged in. He conducts hands-on, potentially lethal experiments on wild birds with no apparent concern for the well-being of those birds, no actual research plan with a goal or a hypothesis, and as far as he relates in the book he has no permits that are legally required to carry out such work.He puts substances on eggs and acknowledges that he doesn't know if they are toxic and could kill the birds; he moves eggs of several species around into the nests of other species, to see if the "adoptive" parents will kill the new egg or the baby when it hatches, and he has only the sketchiest of plans about what to do if and when any baby hatches in the nest of the wrong species. All the birds he experimented on are protected by federal law (the Migratory Bird Treaty Act), and it is illegal to take (meaning harm or kill) or transport them or their eggs without a permit. This type of behavior might have been the norm 100 or even 50 years ago, but it is 2020; we know longer live in a culture where it is acceptable for scientists to do whatever they want whenever they want just to satisfy their own curiosity.

Beginning in 1979 with Bumblebee Economics, a groundbreaking study of how bumble bees process and conserve their energy, moving through Ravens in Winter (1989) and The Mind of the Raven (1999), still the best single study of raven mentalities, and spreading widely across the fields of insect and bird study, plus a few excursions outside them, naturalist Bernd Heinrich has produced a steady flow of first rate books about how animals live and why they do the puzzling things they do. His studies are always grounded in solid scientific method, particularly detailed and determined (e.g., (in this book, enduring a plague of black flies without leaving his post observing tree swallows mating and nesting) observation with steady and copious note taking. He understands Darwin. He doesn’t imbue his animals with will or intent beyond what they have and he understands the role of both instinct and preference in shaping their behaviors.He frequently starts with a question: something, that as a result of his years of work in the field, puzzles him about a particular animal’s behavior. Here it’s white feathers. Why, year after year, do the tree swallows nesting near him on his camp in rural Maine, so definitely prefer white over black feathers when it comes time for them to line their nest for brooding? Patiently, he watches his birds --only two of them, a pair, with occasional third or fourth bird visitors. He imprints his presence on them early after their arrival so they grow used to him as a normal part of the background and not a threat. He prepares a nest for them that includes a side panel so he can open it and look inside the nest whenever he wants. And then he conducts a set of controlled experiments to determine when in their mating-brooding cycle the birds pick up feathers to line their nest, is it white they prefer or just contrast against background, what is the survival function of the feathers which are added surprisingly late on in the brooding cycle.Reading a Heinrich narrative is a set of small occasions, observations reported with meticulous care, and conclusions held back until they’ve been tested as far as one can go without being inside the birds’ heads. He has no hesitation in telling when he doesn’t know what happened. (After all, he does have to stop sometime to sleep, dispose of bodily fluids, attend to other work obligations…) He’s also willing to put forth conjectures, not as proven true but as the best possible explanations for now. (Maybe always.) Throughout he writes with a grace and charm missing in many other kinds of scientific writing. His descriptions of wild life, and of bird songs and cries, is often sheer poetry.

I very rarely review books but not only the cover of this book intrigued me, but a book only about one bird species: the tree swallow, had me clicking ‘order’ out of curiosity.Though the premise of the book is ‘about’ the question of why they use white feathers in their nesting material, this book is ‘about’ so much more. It’s a beautiful poem or song written to these birds. The author obviously is not only intrigued by them, maybe slightly obsessed (but in a good way) by them, but respects them, maybe you could say loves them.The writing is gorgeous and full and lush.I watch birds around my heavily wood log home and their behaviors are often secret to me—I loved how this book gave me insights and peeks into a bird’s behavior. I see the author, Bernd Heinrich, has books on Ravens and on Trees in the Forest, and One Wild Bird at a Time—I love his engaging writing enough that I want to order these books for my library!The cover is lovely. The drawings inside are gorgeous and boy would I love to see those in color! I don’t know if the finished book will haves those in color, but even in black and white the detail and beauty of them are significant—such detail! There are photographs too, those as well are in B&W that would look beautiful in color; the photos give one an up and close peek at the bird’s nests and eggs, etc.A book like this with photos in color would make a great ‘coffee table’ book for a gift to the bird lover, but even as it is with B&W photos and drawings it would still make a great gift.This book follows the swallows’ lives from 2010 to 2018, so it is a recent account.I’m impressed by the writing and accounts and drawings and photographs. I didn’t really care about the white feathers part, but all the rest, everything else, made this a beautiful lush read with engaging beautifully crafted writing.