Pluck

From the bestselling author of WHAT AN OWL KNOWS and THE GENIUS OF BIRDS – discover how female birds are transforming our understanding of the natural world

Picture a blackbird, a mallard, a peacock. Odds are you’re picturing the male of the species – female blackbirds are brown, female mallards lack the glossy green head and peahens are more grey than green. For centuries, this has stood as the prevailing picture of female birds: drab, passive and less interesting than their louder, more colourful male counterparts. Scientific research has lagged accordingly. Even today, only twenty-five per cent of the ‘type’ specimens defining bird species in five of the world’s leading natural-history museums are female.

Yet, as Jennifer Ackerman reveals, new research is overturning many of our preconceptions about female birds. Some are more aggressive than we thought, fending off snakes, opossums and even people to protect their young. Biologists are discovering that female songbirds – long assumed not to sing – can have rich, complex repertoires, and that some learn their songs faster than males. Ground-breaking, fascinating and told with Ackerman’s characteristic warmth, Pluck sheds new light on the forgotten half of the avian world – and transforms our understanding of birds.