Vinciane DespretHabiter en oiseau

What would a territory be from the point of view of animals? Vinciane Despret leads the survey among ornithologists.
What interests her above all is to observe the birth and development of the interest that scientists have in birds.

Where we see that, the more we study birds, the more complicated things become. New ways of making territory appear, much more complex than ornithologists could imagine. What if these manners were nothing but spectacle, parades that no one is really fooled by ? What if it was only a game, to “ pretend ” ? What if we paid attention to the fact that the territories are always glued to each other ? Would they not, then, be a way for the birds to continue to live together by being otherwise organized ?

Under the pen of Vinciane Despret, birds and ornithologists become intensely alive and extremely endearing. At the end of this book, the notion of territory should no longer be taken for granted. And we may not hear the birds singing in the same way.