Pigeons and starlings, sparrows and crows, owls, peregrine falcons, and even parrots. Everyone will have enough space next to a person in the concrete jungle of the city. But what our joint life will be like and whether it will not turn into a constant confrontation depends only on us.
A new book by ornithologist Nataliia Atamas tells the story of birds in the city: where they live and how they take care of their feathered babies, how they solve the painful housing issue, and choose their territory. The book itself is built as a walk - from the outskirts to the center, from parks and cemeteries to old stone houses and skyscrapers.
How do you deal with woodpeckers and what do concussions and football helmets have to do with them? Where to look for gray owls in Kyiv and how does the noise of the city affect the reproduction of great tits? What happened to the kidnapping of blackbird eggs and what ended the debate about where swallows spend the winter?
The ornithologist tries to give answers to all these questions, and at the same time to explain why cats left on the street are so dangerous, how to scare birds away from your flower bed in the country, and ultimately how to make our life together with birds in the same city comfortable and mutually beneficial.
Nataliia Atamas is an ornithologist, candidate of biological sciences, popularizer of science, and author of the book "Bird History. Scandals, intrigues, and the Art of Survival." Lover of opera and master of kayaking. Raises a son, a fluffy cat, and a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, who can't stand opera.
Nataliia works at the I.I. Schmalhausen's Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, her specialization is nesting biology and ecology of waterfowl.
