'Renowned for its unusual mammals, Australia is a land of birds that are just as unusual, just as striking, a result of the continent's tens of millions of years of isolation. Compared with birds elsewhere, ours are more likely to be intelligent, aggressive and loud, to live in complex societies, and are long-lived. They're also ecologically more powerful, exerting more influences on forests than other birds.
'But unlike the mammals, the birds did not keep to Australia; they spread around the globe. Australia provided the world with its songbirds and parrots, the most intelligent of all bird groups. It was thought in Darwin's time that species generated in the Southern Hemisphere could not succeed in the Northern, an idea that was proven wrong in respect of birds in the 1980s but not properly accepted by the world's scientists until 2004 – because, says Tim Low, most ornithologists live in the Northern Hemisphere.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
2015 Fellowship of Australian Writers in Victoria : Excellence in Non-Fiction Award, judges comment :
Tim Low's Where Song Began is an absorbing, fascinating account of our native bird life.
'Toward the end of his highly enjoyable book Where Song Began, Tim Low informs us that “it might be said that the world has one hemisphere weighted towards mammals and one towards birds.” The hemisphere weighted toward mammals is the northern one. And Low makes a convincing case that, in the south, birds of a most extravagant type occur. But is the southern hemisphere truly weighted toward birds? One window into the question is through bird–human interactions. We humans are used to getting our way with nature, but in the Antipodes birds occasionally gain the upper hand.' (Introduction)
'Toward the end of his highly enjoyable book Where Song Began, Tim Low informs us that “it might be said that the world has one hemisphere weighted towards mammals and one towards birds.” The hemisphere weighted toward mammals is the northern one. And Low makes a convincing case that, in the south, birds of a most extravagant type occur. But is the southern hemisphere truly weighted toward birds? One window into the question is through bird–human interactions. We humans are used to getting our way with nature, but in the Antipodes birds occasionally gain the upper hand.' (Introduction)
