Another consequence of the accessibility of birds is that ornithology has been an inclusive and democratic science, open to all comers. Ornithology has a proud history of amateurs conducting significant research projects and publishing their results in serious ornithological journals. A fine example of this is Eliot Howard, a British industrialist who, in his spare time, made some of the first detailed field observations of common birds. Howard was the first to fully understand the significance of territory in mate selection and breeding success, and published his ideas in an influential book Territory in Bird Life (1920). A current example of a major contribution by non-professionals has occurred in Victoria, where a group of amateur shorebird enthusiasts, the Victorian Wader Study Group, has increased our understanding of the movement patterns and ecology of migratory shorebirds to a level almost unimaginable twenty-five years ago. They have done so mostly by using standard techniques for catching and banding birds, techniques developed over centuries by bird trappers and breeders, as described by Birkhead in this book. A direct consequence of their weekend work, characterised by determination, careful planning and enormous energy, is that our capacity to conserve shorebirds throughout Australasia and Asia has been greatly enhanced.

Birkhead argues that Englishman John Ray was the originator of modern ornithology. In 1678 Ray published an encyclopedia of birds which included the first workable definition of a species, and a practical classification system based on the structure of birds’ beaks and feet. Preceding Linnaeus by some sixty years, this classification system was the beginning of bird taxonomy. In 1691 Ray published a revelatory treatise on the natural world, The Wisdom of God, from which Birkhead’s title is derived. In The Wisdom of God, Ray was amongst the first authors to recognise the power of field observation to back up claims about animal biology, rather than perpetuating folklore, as his predecessors had tended to do. This rigour, derived from the example of Francis Bacon, paved the way for the development of modern biology and field ecology. While the astonishing diversity of life was becoming apparent through the golden age of exploration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, progress towards understanding the function and maintenance of this diversity was painfully slow. The publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection provided the conceptual breakthrough which led to exponential increases in biological understanding. The application of Darwinian models now underlies virtually all research into bird populations, behaviour, physiology, genetics and conservation.

Most of The Wisdom of Birds comprises chapters on the development of the major themes in ornithology, beginning with the egg and its fertilisation, through learning and instinct, migration, the factors that control the breeding cycle, territoriality, song, sex lives, reproduction and longevity. This is where Birkhead’s sweeping knowledge of past and present ornithology comes to the fore. Each of ten chapters presents a brilliantly clear and concise summary of the replacement of myths and folklore with demonstrated facts and concepts. This is perhaps best illustrated by the struggle to accept the reality of migration. Despite the ancient Greeks’ understanding that swallows moved to north Africa during the winter, western Europeans clung tenaciously to a belief, perpetuated by religious authorities, that birds that disappeared in autumn spent the winter in torpor, as bats were known to do. In Britain, the notion that swallows aestivated in mud at the bottom of a pond persisted until the mid-1700s. Even the country curate and naturalist Gilbert White, author of one of the best-selling books of all time, The Natural History of Selbourne (1789), perpetuated doubts about the existence of migration. Only when his brother, stationed in Gibraltar, wrote to him and described his observations of flocks of birds crossing the Straits of Gibraltar, did White begin to believe that mass seasonal movements were indeed occurring.

Perhaps the biggest revelation during recent decades is that birds do not always breed as simple, faithful pairs, as had been thought for some two thousand years. Molecular tests of paternity have shown that infidelity is rife amongst birds, and very often the male bird attending to his parental duties at the nest is actually not the father of the clutch. Such cuckoldry is probably more common in Australian songbirds than in any other group. The well-known Blue Wren (properly called Superb Fairy-wren) is an extreme case, whereby almost all clutches are fathered by a neighbouring male, the female having made nocturnal visits to his territory. The evolutionary advantage of such behaviour has been the subject of much debate. Many Australian birds, such as the Laughing Kookaburra and Australian Magpie, also use helpers – usually their male offspring from a previous season – to assist in rearing chicks.

Another romantic myth that has been exploded is that songbirds sing for the sheer pleasure of it. All bird song is intended to convey a specific message, and much-loved bird songs such as the Kookaburra’s laugh and the Pied Butcherbird’s superb fluting are in fact designed to indicate territorial boundaries which neighbouring males should not cross if they want to avoid a stoush.

While ornithology is the central theme of The Wisdom of Birds, the book in effect traces the triumph of reason, observation, evidence and experimentation over the untested belief systems that dominated human history before the seventeenth century. Birkhead and his assistants have trawled the historical natural history literature to uncover the genesis of important ideas and understandings. The depth of this historical research is evident in the Notes and Bibliography, and is emphasised by the beautiful selection of historic illustrations which greatly assists the reader in comprehending the state of knowledge in times past. Nor does Birkhead provide an Anglocentric view, although Britain has made a major contribution to ornithology and its recreational cousin, birdwatching. Birkhead emphasises the critical contributions of scientists from Western Europe and North America, particularly in the surge of field studies that began in the 1930s. Two Australians rate a mention: Jock Marshall, foundation professor of zoology at Monash University, who pioneered studies of hormonal control of breeding in birds; and Richard Zann of La Trobe University, who has spent half a lifetime studying Australia’s remarkable, desert-adapted, breeding-machine, the Zebra Finch.

Of far greater general interest than simply ornithological, this book is an important contribution to the history of the natural sciences and scientific enlightenment. That it reads so effortlessly makes it a doubly impressive achievement.