I purchased this book after reading an article in the winter
edition of the Forest & Bird magazine, that related to tui. The book’s
overall theme is that Australian birds are the origin, through evolution, of
all the songbirds in the world. The earlier theory (1800s) was that songbirds
evolved in Europe no doubt because they thought Europe
was the centre of their early civilisation. However, DNA and LNA testing has
exposed their folly. The book is in fact much wider than just songbirds. It delves
into the origin of nectar feeders and parrots, both of which Australia has many.
It investigated the relationship of birds’ unique habits with the equally
unique Australian flora. Many trees and plants have adapted, in some cases to
their detriment, to rely on their relationship with birds to reproduce either by
fertilising their flowers or to distribute their seeds.
To sum up, a quote from the book,” Australia has the
oldest songbird lineage as well as the wealth of form and behaviour that goes
with tens of millions of years of slow and steady diversification. The
evolutionary distance between a lyrebird and, say, a currawong, is larger than
that between any two songbirds in Europe or the Americas.”
A you tube clip of a lyrebird calling by David Attenborough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ
I found this a really fascinating book. The only thing I
struggled with was that I had little knowledge of the Australian bird (Baudin’s
black-cockatoo, mallee emu-wren) and flora names but google helped me out with
this as I went along. A good informative read.
9780143572817 (paperback) Penguin Random House Australia,
2017
Reviewed by Rex Bushell
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