Birds and Us: Our Relationships with Birds

From pigeons to arctic terns to hummingbirds, birds evoke a whole range of emotions in us. Ornithologist Tim Birkhead tells us the stories.

Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art and philosophy. Looking to the skies above, we have variously worshipped birds as gods, hunted them for sustenance, adorned ourselves in their feathers, studied their wings to engineer flight and, more recently — thankfully — we have attempted to protect them. I believe that by understanding our past relationships with birds will help us preserve our current empathy for birds. The story is one that merges, history, science and passion.