There’s a bird that tricks other animals into dropping their lunch

The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman explores how small monitoring devices are helping researchers get closer to birds than ever before to uncover hidden aspects of their lives

By Simon Ings

Book

The Bird Way

Jennifer Ackerman

Corsair

VISIT the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra and you may stumble upon an odd sight: a human figure, festooned with futuristic monitoring gear. When children poke it – which happens a lot – the statue blinks.

Meet Jessica McLachlan, a researcher at Australian National University who is hard at work studying the fine, never-before-detected details of bird behaviour. The gear she wears is what it takes to observe the world as birds themselves see it.

Bird brains are miracles of …