The Thing with Feathers Quotes

“Theft seems to be a persistent personality trait. Rossini was inspired to write an opera in the early 1800s called La Gazza Ladra—The Thieving Magpie—and people who have an unusual preoccupation with shiny objects are said to have “magpie syndrome.” This thieving reputation may be part folktale, but the birds do occasionally swipe things, often for no obvious purpose. When a magpie was caught stealing a customer’s car keys at a garage in Littleborough, England, it made the Manchester Evening News, and also in Britain, The Telegraph reported in 2008 that a magpie had snatched a woman’s $5,000 platinum engagement ring from her windowsill while she was in the shower—luckily, her husband-to-be found it tucked safely in the bird’s nest in a nearby oak tree, albeit three years later! One of the most intriguing behaviors of wild magpies involves their apparent habit of holding impromptu funerals. Sometimes, when a magpie finds a dead comrade, it will begin squawking at full volume, calling in all other magpies in the area, which join in an intense racket as they gather around the body. At some point, they all go quiet; there follows a period of contemplation, during which time different individuals will sometimes gently probe or preen the carcass, before each bird silently takes its leave, one by one.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“Magpies are well known for taunting larger animals, especially pets. They are probably just trying to drive off a perceived predator, but sometimes they seem to consciously trick other creatures with mean-spirited mind games. One BBC documentary featured a pet magpie that loved to torment two domestic dogs by imitating the alarm call of ducks on the pond outside his house; this would invariably send the poor canines scrambling outside to chase a nonexistent fox—because the ducks often called warnings to one another when the fox passed by. Another pair of magpies once repeatedly taunted a cat along a busy country road in Britain by perching in a tree, waiting for a break in traffic, and then flying down to the pavement to lure the kitty into the road; when a car approached, the birds would flutter up at the last second while the cat scrambled to avoid becoming roadkill.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“Along with other members of the corvid family—crows, ravens, jackdaws, rooks, jays, nutcrackers, treepies, and choughs—magpies have long been thought by scientists to be among the world’s smartest birds, with parrots a close second, and among the most intelligent of all animals.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world,” wrote Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a twenty-five-year-old adventurer who visited Cape Crozier in 1911 during Robert Scott’s ill-fated South Pole expedition. “Their little bodies are so full of curiosity,” he observed, “that they have little room for fear.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“The bee hummingbird, which lives in Cuba, weighs as little as 1.8 grams—about a third as much as a sheet of printer paper. You could mail sixteen of them for the price of a single postage stamp.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“The famous golfer Walter Hagen, perhaps the first athlete ever to earn a million dollars, recognized the need to slow down once in a while. He might even have been pondering hummingbirds when he once quipped: “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“Perhaps restlessness has a genetic component. If so, emigrants would be expected to establish populations with more wanderlust in their DNA than those back at home. Scientists have identified one particular allele, called 7R, of our DRD4 gene that may fit this description; it has been linked to attention deficit disorder and attraction to novelty, earning its nickname: the risk gene. Research has documented that people with the 7R allele take 25 percent more financial risk than those without it. Tellingly, the allele tends to be more concentrated in recently established populations (in terms of historic human expansion): Most people in the Americas have it, a few in Europe do, and it is rare in parts of Asia. People with this “wanderlust gene” may be literally hardwired to seek new experiences.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“The aesthetics alone are inspiring. New York–based photographer Richard Barnes, best known for his starkly artistic portraits of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s cabin, released a captivating collection of black-and-white images of starling flocks over Rome in 2005. His photos are carefully framed against urban horizons. Some are simply beautiful, others sinister and Hitchcockian, but all are somehow magnetic (more on that later). In a statement accompanying Barnes’s images, author Jonathan Rosen observes, “Part of the fascination of the starlings is the way they seem to be inscribing some sort of language in the air, if only we could read it.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“For a while, homing pigeons were most notable for their use in military operations. When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815, a swift-flying carrier pigeon delivered the message from present-day Belgium across the English Channel to Count Rothschild, of the Rothschild banking dynasty, who was apparently the first person in England to hear the news. The quick-thinking count made several critical financial decisions and amassed a considerable fortune based on his advance knowledge of the outcome of Napoleon’s last campaign.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“Sure, we can never know whether or not real altruism exists in this universe, but wouldn't it be wise for us–considering the bleak alternative–to take a cue from fairy-wrens, and act as if it did?”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“Does physics underlie even the spontaneous, beautiful displays of life on earth? The answer depends, in a sense, on whether you believe math is discovered or invented; whether it's a pervasive force, guiding every action in this universe, or whether logic is imposed by the human brain.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“After all, a healthy adult owl needs about five lemmings a day just to stay alive (which makes you wonder: Does a snowy owl wake up in the morning and think, “Yes! A lemming for breakfast! And brunch! And lunch! And two for dinner!”).”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human

“Those few individuals quickly multiplied across the continent into a population of 120 million, distinguishing the European starling as about the seventh most abundant bird species in North America today (after the American robin, dark-eyed junco, red-winged blackbird, red-eyed vireo, white-throated sparrow, and yellow-rumped warbler, according to Partners in Flight). Few species have ever spread so fast or multiplied so quickly—except humans.”
― Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human