SPRING 2002/VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

The Secretary-bird, more than three feet tall, strides through the African savanna stamping its feet to flush potential prey--large insects, reptiles, rodents, and other small animals. Robert Gillmor

With final chapters of the recently revised, college-level course just off the press, enrollees include homemakers, wildlife biologists, retirees, and wrestling coaches - a group of people with little in common besides a hunger to know more about birds and a desire to delve into the more than 1,000 pages of fascinating text.

The new edition of the course presents a blend of timeless ornithological knowledge from the original 1972 edition with new scientific findings from the last 30 years. Each chapter was written by a different ornithologist, an authority on his subject. Lab staff edited the text to make it accessible to the layperson, incorporated more than 1,000 photos, illustrations, and graphs, and added sidebars to explain technical information, share human interest stories, and highlight amazing bird facts. The 10 chapters and an accompanying CD on vocal behavior arrive on students' doorsteps in two fat binders.

The first edition of the Home Study Course graduated nearly 10,000 students over its nearly 30-year run. It was produced by former Lab director Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., who enthusiastically promoted the public's awareness of birds not only through the course, but through lectures, books, and, before he came to the Lab, a radio show.

As with the first edition, enrollees study at their own pace, contact the Lab's instructors as needed, and submit an exam for grading at the end of each chapter. Some complete one chapter a week; others may take years. Graduates receive a certificate signed by the Lab's director.

Like this Downy Woodpecker, many woodpeckers alternate flapping and gliding. Robert Gillmor

Some chapters, though extensively revised, preserve some of the text from the popular original. One student wrote to the Lab in 1972 expressing appreciation for a section on flight, "Even my five-year-old daughter has increased her knowledge. She loves to drape her hand out the car window and explain to me all about lift."The text still explains flight mechanics using the analogy of a person's arm held aloft by wind outside the car window. But SUNY professor Kenneth Able, who rewrote the chapter on flight and migration, also describes experiments from the 1990s that showed how behavior in Blackcap warblers is genetically controlled, discusses recent evolutionary theory about why birds migrate, and explains new breakthroughs in our understanding of how birds navigate.

Other chapters and two supplemental sections are entirely new, including "A Guide to Bird Watching" by Audubon's vice-president for bird conservation, Stephen Kress; "Vocal Behavior," by University of Massachusetts professor Donald Kroodsma; and "Evolution of Birds and Avian Flight," by University of North Carolina professor Alan Feduccia.

Also new is "Bird Conservation," by Lab director John Fitzpatrick. The important field of conservation biology was not even recognized as a discipline when the first students of the Home Study Course graduated in the 1970s. Fitzpatrick presents this contemporary subject with an overview of extinctions and the causes of bird population declines. He explains the tools of conservation biology, including genetic studies, management of species, design of reserves, and legal protection. Students can draw on other relevant chapters to gain a holistic perspective on bird conservation that includes knowledge of bird diversity, evolution, ecology, behavior, and population dynamics.

Northern Gannets in a mutual display thought to reaffirm the pair bond. C. G. Pritchard

Another new feature is a unique CD of 71 recordings from the Lab's Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds. As students read the chapter on vocal behavior, they interpret sonagrams by listening to sounds and studying the diagrams. They ponder the complexities of avian communication by hearing different types of chickadee calls and reading about what they mean. To understand how birds learn to sing, they listen to a wild White-crowned Sparrow and a captive sparrow that never heard its own species. Author Kroodsma even includes a recording of his 18-month-old daughter's babbling to illustrate how human speech development is analogous to subsong in birds.

Sidebars throughout the text capitalize on the elements of fun and human interest. The chapter "Form and Function: the External Bird," builds on the original edition, defining more than 20 terms for parts and types of feathers and discussing topics such as preening, molting, anting, camouflage, mate attraction, and even the feather as a microcosm for small organisms. A sidebar describes how Roxie Laybourne, a Smithsonian scientist, studies mangled feathers removed from airplane engines to help the Federal Aviation Administration identify which bird species caused planes to crash. Another sidebar presents interesting tidbits, such as how a bird's feathers are usually two to three times heavier than its skeleton, and fun facts, like the number of contour feathers on a Tundra Swan (25,216).

Even sidebars that explain technical information are entertaining. For example, course editor Sandy Podulka and her physicist husband, Bill, explain how feathers produce iridescent colors. They show why the red patch on a Ruby-throated Hummingbird's throat changes in brightness depending on the viewing angle. And they offer mind-boggling details, such as "The purity, range, and brilliance of the [iridescent] colors produced by each species are tightly controlled by minute structures whose size, density, and shape must be highly accurate - sometimes to within four ten-millionths of an inch (0.00001 mm)."

Hummingbird on a feather of a large bird. Bird wingspans range from 2.6 inches (Bee Hummingbird) to more than 11.5 feet (Wandering Albatross). Charles L. Ripper

The course often encourages students to take a hands-on approach. The text instructs them to examine pet birds or a whole chicken from the grocery store to learn about bird anatomy. Students learn how to attract birds to their yards, choose and use binoculars, keep a bird journal, and interpret song. The chapter on conservation describes how to improve habitats for birds and explains how students can participate in citizen science, environmental education, and grassroots activism.

Many of the authors use a personal style, giving the course a liveliness unusual in textbooks. Professor Kroodsma's voice rings as clearly as if spoken from across his desk during office hours: "I like to picture humans in all types of dwellings, around the globe, in the northern and southern hemisphere, tracking the dawn chorus by throwing open their windows, letting this marvelous bird music help us greet each new day… And all that goes on as these birds communicate with each other is truly astounding!"

At the end of the final chapter on conservation, Fitzpatrick's words offer inspiration in the same way that a lecturer's might on the last day of class: "Never give up. Do not ever resign yourself to the idea that the battle is lost, or that it cannot be won…we still have immense power to influence the course of earth's natural history simply by deciding that we value other species, that we can protect natural systems, and that we can improve our own behavior."

The Barn Swallows, like many swallows, captures insects in flight using its huge mouth and small beak Charles L. Ripper

It's a fitting closer for a course whose students have used the information to enrich their own lives and perpetuate the appreciation and protection of birds. Homemaker Georgeanne Wilcox used what she learned from the course to improve her farmland, and she is already attracting hundreds more birds than when she moved there four years ago. Edward Bue, a retiree, used the intensive section on bird anatomy to improve his woodcarvings. Naturalist Diane Tucker incorporated what she's learned into talks on bird adaptation and behavior at a nature center in Connecticut.

"I'm loving the Home Study Course - it's everything I wanted it to be," says Sandy Maddox, owner of an insurance company. "I'm not a scientist, and I have to work at understanding some of the concepts. But that is a good thing. I believe stretching your mind is the key to not getting old. It has deepened my awe of our winged friends. Every day while watching birds, I'm reminded of something I've read in the course."