Thinking with Birds

An exploration of how our age-old relationship with birds—across time, continents, and cultures—offers a crucial perspective on our place in the natural world.

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In every language, stories about birds link to cosmology, history, creative expression, and identity. Stories woven with birds bring whole worlds into focus—yet today, many of the world’s birds are on the brink of population decline. What aspects of human knowledge could be lost if they were to drop out of our experience?

Ecological anthropologist Felice Wyndham illuminates how we think about the world with birds: how we fly with them in our imaginations and see them as messengers, as clues to coming changes, as diagnostics of luck and omens of the future. They serve as interactive signs in the world around us, but we also think with them as companions, teachers, relatives, and co-dwellers of our planet. As we confront the hard realities of species extinction and crumbling ecological and knowledge systems, Wyndham draws on decades of experience working with bird knowledge around the world to revive this shared history.