What They Do for Love

A bird's playbook for romance is as rich and varied as our own, from the crow's lifelong devotion to the chickadee's Jane Austen-like social dynamics. In this scintillating survey of 35 species' mating and partnership habits, Laura Erickson opens our eyes and deepens our connection to our avian neighbors by revealing the astonishing array of ways birds court and couple up.

Introduction: Looking for Mr. or Ms. Right
Sex in the City: Rock Pigeon
Speed Dating: Prairie Grouse
Living in Jane Austen's World: Black-Capped Chickadee
Bully for Them: Wild Turkey
Be My Valentine: Great Horned Owl
Tender Romantics: American Crow
Just the Two of Us: Trumpeter Swan
Going Steady: Mallard
Romantic Duets: Northern Cardinal
Old-Fashioned Love Songs: American Robin
Othello Didn't Have to End That Way: Northern Mockingbird
Singing Casanova: House Wren
Happy Feet: Blue-Footed Booby
Dancing with the Stars: Whooping Crane
Cyrano de Bergerac: American Woodcock
Love on the Beach: Piping Plover
Passion in Fresh Water: Common Loon
Going the Distance: Arctic Tern
The Food of Love: Limpkin
You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting Better: Eastern Screech-Owl
When I'm Sixty-Four: Laysan Albatross
Rosie the Riveter: Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Wearing the Pants: Wilson's Phalarope
Are You My Mother?: Brown-Headed Cowbird
The Bold and the Beautiful: Eastern Bluebird
One Big Happy Family: Red-Winged Blackbird
Group Hug!: Belted Kingfisher
The Inconstant Moon: Red Knot
Across a Crowded Room: Herring Gull
Say It with Sticks: Great Blue Heron
Rocks Are a Hen's Best Friend: Adelie Penguin
Material Girl and Boy: Satin Bowerbird
This Old House: Bald Eagle
Failure to Launch: Florida Scrub-Jay
Romantic Comedy: White-Throated Sparrow
Index

Laura Erickson is the author of The Love Lives of Birds and The Bird Watching Answer Book, and is coauthor of Into the Nest. A recipient of the American Birding Association’s prestigious Roger Tory Peterson award, she has served as science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, an editor of Bird Scope magazine, and a columnist and contributing editor for Birdwatching magazine. She produces For the Birds, a long-running public radio program and podcast, and lives in Duluth, Minnesota.