sort of an overview of research having to do with the five senses ( plus a bonus or two.)
With occasional anecdotes about the author's own research. Interesting and a quick and pleasant read,though not as much information as I'd hoped. ( )

Pretty good. I don't feel that the book actually told me what it was like to be a bird. ( )

This was given to me as a gift because I'd really enjoyed "The Wisdom of Birds". What I'd loved about that book, and what stays in my mind, is the fun you have reading about people's superstitions, wrong conclusions and interaction with birds, be it barnacle geese or hanging up kingfishers to tell which way the wind will blow. "Bird Sense" also has its collection of people to enjoy, including John James Audubon- known to me thanks to greetings cards featuring birds like the large-billed puffin. But it also felt more scholarly, and more interesting about actual senses and physiology, such as owls' unevenly distributed ears and the way hawks take in so much information so much more quickly than we do (except during traffic accidents when we're about Even Stevens...). I could have done with some more illustrations to help me envisage what he was explaining, lovely as Katrina van Grouw's are - but then maybe that's also what was so beautiful about "The Wisdom of Birds" - it was such a gorgeous indulgence of a book! ( )

I am a bit of a bird nerd, so this book definitely piqued my curiosity. The author examines birds' senses, from the "basic five" to magnetic sense, and even emotions. I picked up several fun facts along the way: did you know birds' internal organs undergo seasonal changes?
The centres in the avian brain that control the acquisition and delivery of song in male birds shrink at the end of the breeding season and grow again in the following spring. The brain is expensive to run – in humans it uses about ten times as much energy as any other organ – so, for birds, shutting down those parts not needed at certain times of the year is a sensible energy-saving tactic.

I also enjoyed the chapter on smell. Only recently have scientists confirmed birds do indeed have a sense of smell, and there is still much to study and learn. This book is written much more for the lay person than a scientist, which was fine with me because I'm not a scientist. Despite that, I would have enjoyed going deeper into some of the research, and also wanted to know more about areas of current scientific debate. ( )

All about the senses of birds and how we know they have them. If you can't bear to eat animals, you may not enjoy reading about the things scientists do to them to understand them. Bird Sense is detailed in the extreme. It said it was written for amateurs; well I suppose I'm whatever is before amateur. Mildly interested maybe? I think the information is the sort I would rather read in a glossy magazine with color photos and charts and graphs and little paragraphs to explain. It was interesting. At times it seemed to be more about the scientific method than about actual bird senses. It took over an hour on the audio to even begin to hear about birds, which kinda killed any interest my husband had. As you can probably tell, I endured this book rather than enjoyed it, but it was an interesting subject, and so I listened until the end. ( )