When The Lyrebird Calls

Education for sustainable development, the educational offshoot of the concept of ‘sustainable development’, has rapidly become the predominant educational response to the global environmental crisis. The authors apply a critical lens to the field and find it wanting in many regards. Sustainability Frontiers is an international, academic non-governmental organization based in Canada and the United Kingdom. It engages in research and innovation in the broad fields of sustainability and global education challenging dominant assumptions and current orthodoxies as it seeks to foster learner empowerment and action. It places particular emphasis on climate change, disaster risk reduction and peacebuilding and their implications for the nature and directions of sustainability education.

Bird song, traditionally regarded as primarily a male trait, is in fact widespread among female songbirds and was probably present in the ancestor of modern songbirds (Odom et al 2014 Nature Communications). These recent findings challenge the view that sexual dimorphism in the expression and complexity of song is largely the outcome of sexual selection on males. It is now clear that understanding the evolution of bird song requires explaining variation within and among species in the expression and complexity of female song. To do this, we need a better understanding of the nature of variation in female song in different contexts and systems, as well as the fitness costs and benefits of variation in the expression and complexity of female song. This Research Topic draws together current research on female song with the goal of understanding the fitness costs and benefits of the diversity of female singing behaviour apparent among songbirds. It includes articles ranging from single-species studies investigating how female song varies with context and contrasts with male song, to comparative analyses exploring relationships between female song and ecological, social, and other factors, as well as opinion pieces.

Birds are among the most extensively studied of all animal groups. Hundreds of academic journals and thousands of scientists are devoted to bird research, while amateur enthusiasts (called birdwatchers or, more commonly, birders) probably number in the millions. Birds are categorised as a biological class, Aves. The earliest known species of this class is Archaeopteryx lithographica, from the Late Jurassic period. According to the most recent consensus, Aves and a sister group, the order Crocodilia, together form a group of unnamed rank, the Archosauria. Phylogenetically, Aves is usually defined as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds (or of a specific modern bird species like Passer domesticus), and Archaeopteryx. Modern phylogenies place birds in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. Modern birds are divided into two superorders, the Paleognathae (mostly flightless birds like ostriches), and the wildly diverse Neognathae, containing all other birds.

Lyrebirds are native to Australia and were only scientifically documented in the late 18th Century and are still the subject of exhaustive study to this day. Their amazing calls and exceptional skills of mimicry have led them to becoming the subject of many tall tales, this is a well written guide to the real Lyrebird by a man who has been into the wild outback to find them. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries. From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.

This is an invitation to readers to ponder universal questions about human relations with rivers and water for the precarious times of the Anthropocene. The book asks how humans can learn through sensory embodied encounters with local waterways that shape the architecture of cities and make global connections with environments everywhere. The book considers human becomings with urban waterways to address some of the major conceptual challenges of the Anthropocene, through stories of trauma and healing, environmental activism, and encounters with the living beings that inhabit waterways. Its unique contribution is to bring together Australian Aboriginal knowledges with contemporary western, new materialist, posthuman and Deleuzean philosophies, foregrounding how visual, creative and artistic forms can assist us in thinking beyond the constraints of western thought to enable other modes of being and knowing the world for an unpredictable future. Riverlands of the Anthropocene will be of particular interest to those studying the Anthropocene through the lenses of environmental humanities, environmental education, philosophy, ecofeminism and cultural studies.

For at least 30 years, there have been close parallels between studies of birdsong development and those of the development of human language. Both song and language require species-specific stimulation at a sensitive period in development and subsequent practice through subsong and plastic song in birds and babbling in infant humans leading to the development of characteristic vocalisations for each species. This book illustrates how social interactions during development can shape vocal learning and extend the sensitive period beyond infancy and how social companions can induce flexibility even into adulthood. Social companions in a wide range of species including birds and humans but also cetaceans and nonhuman primates play important roles in shaping vocal production as well as the comprehension and appropriate usage of vocal communication. This book will be required reading for students and researchers interested in animal and human communication and its development.