BIRDS UP CLOSE

How an owl hunts silently in total darkness, and why it matters.

Water off a duck’s back, light as a feather, bird-brained—to engineers, these aren’t just sayings, but inspiration. From the Wright brothers’ fixation on the flight of gannets when designing their first planes to more recent developments like quiet wind turbines that draw from the design of owl feathers, engineers have drawn their designs from nature. Gibson, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT and an avid birder, seeks to make these complex machinations of birds accessible in this informative primer on bird science. In chapters covering feathers, bones, bills, eggs, and flight, Gibson explains scientific concepts from their simple foundations (“But what is color?”) to their more complex conclusions (“Hummingbirds achieve their spectacular iridescent colors with between 7 and 15 well-defined layers of melanosomes, pancake-shaped melanin structures with interior air pockets”). Drawing from her engineering background, Gibson draws parallels between engineering and nature, giving readers deeper insights into both. For example, the author explains how a penguin’s down feathers reduce the conduction, convection, and radiation of heat in order to withstand Antarctic blizzards while noting the same science applies to sleeping bags. While consistently interesting, the writing is to the point and, at times, flat: “When I look at these bones, they seem almost like works of sculpture— they’re really beautiful.” The book often gets bogged down by minutiae, such as the precise scientific names of the pigments that give many bird eggs their colors. But the occasional interesting anecdote will sustain less-scientifically minded readers: how woodpeckers delayed a NASA launch by pecking holes in the foam protecting a space shuttle’s fuel tank or the idea that it’s “actually possible for a barefoot person to walk (carefully) on chicken eggs still in their carton without breaking them.”

Eye-opening, if best suited for the geekiest birders and enginerds.