Flight Paths

£16.99

How and why birds navigate the skies, traveling from continent to continent – flying thousands of miles across the earth each fall and spring – has continually fascinated the human imagination, but only recently have we been able to fully understand these amazing journeys. Although we know much more than ever before, even the most enthusiastic birdwatcher may not know how we got here, the ways that the full breadth of scientific disciplines have come together to reveal these annual avian travels. This is the story of how a group of migration-obsessed scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries engaged nearly every branch of science to understand bird migration – from where and when they take off to their flight paths and behaviours, their destinations and the challenges they encounter getting there.

Backorder Notice MessageJan 01, 1970

SKU: 9781800752924 Category: Tag:

Description

How and why birds navigate the skies, travelling from continent to continent – flying thousands of miles across the earth each autumn and spring – has continually fascinated the human imagination, but only recently have we been able to fully understand these amazing journeys.

How did this revolution come about? Flight Paths is the never-before-told story of how an eccentric group of ornithologists, engineers and other pioneering scientists have harnessed nearly every technological development of the last hundred years to understand bird migration in detail – from where and when they take off, their flight paths and behaviours, their destinations and the challenges they face getting there.

In this fascinating and compelling story Rebecca Heisman uncovers the secret history of an ornithological arms race that not only helped solve the mystery of bird migration using radar, radioactive isotopes, satellites and the humble aluminium band but has also given us much needed insight into how best to protect and conserve the bird life we cherish.

Additional information

Weight 384 g
Dimensions 234 × 135 × 29 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

303

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

598.1568 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K