The amount of time and research you put into this article set me down, Huge respect! What I learned from it was details I had not known up until now, such as the amount of visual radius, the lung sacs, the fact that birds can do so much more than one or two functions. You really won Substack with this one, Sir. I did not want it to end. My only regret is that I haven’t the wherewithal to be a paid sub to so many outstanding authors such as yourself. Again, thank you for the great work.
Lovely essay! Closer to home in the British isles where waxwings are only visitors, rarely seen in the SW, there are the goldfinches for beauty, and for maritime birds, the puffins. And here's a shout-out for ravens, for their intelligence and their joie-de-vivre displayed in their acrobatics.
Great piece! Serendipitously I've just started reading Richard Prum"s Evolution of Beauty and have been thinking a lot about the question of sexual selection and beauty. The romantic in me wants to believe Prum's null hypothesis of "Beauty Happens" but I'm not versed in evolutionary theory/genetics to know one way or another. Hope you write more on this
Beautiful! More like this, please.
Consider it done sir!
The amount of time and research you put into this article set me down, Huge respect! What I learned from it was details I had not known up until now, such as the amount of visual radius, the lung sacs, the fact that birds can do so much more than one or two functions. You really won Substack with this one, Sir. I did not want it to end. My only regret is that I haven’t the wherewithal to be a paid sub to so many outstanding authors such as yourself. Again, thank you for the great work.
Lovely essay! Closer to home in the British isles where waxwings are only visitors, rarely seen in the SW, there are the goldfinches for beauty, and for maritime birds, the puffins. And here's a shout-out for ravens, for their intelligence and their joie-de-vivre displayed in their acrobatics.
We are blessed with so many seabirds in Britain, but they don't get enough love
I'm disappointed that there aren't any birds that live underwater. Although they would probably look like further streamlined penguins.
Maybe in another million years certain penguin species will be fully aquatic, I'm a huge fan of their work, be interesting to see where they go next
I would love a follow up to this exploring how unusual avian genetic structure and metabolism is compared to other vertebrates.
How very informative! Thank you.
Great piece! Serendipitously I've just started reading Richard Prum"s Evolution of Beauty and have been thinking a lot about the question of sexual selection and beauty. The romantic in me wants to believe Prum's null hypothesis of "Beauty Happens" but I'm not versed in evolutionary theory/genetics to know one way or another. Hope you write more on this