Why Birds Do What They Do

The more humans understand about their behavior, the more inaccessible their world seems.

- By Jenny Odell

Bushtits—almost impossibly tiny gray birds that live in flocks across the western United States—are not hard to spot in the Bay Area. I usually become aware of them by noticing a chorus of peeping in part of an oak tree that seems to be jiggling. Their nests, though, are well hidden, and they’re different from what most people would expect. Made out of spiderwebs, fur, lichen, and plant material, they hang down from a couple of branches like a strange-looking sock with a side entrance near the top. A month or so ago, when my friend Joe showed me the nest he’d found, we watched the birds ferrying bits of fuzz and what we speculated were oak flowers, adding them thoughtfully to the growing blob.

Bushtits were some of the first birds I learned to identify when I started bird-watching, in 2016, armed with what seems to be the standard guide in these parts. Sibley Birds West features two species to a page with a brief description, different molts, and subspecies—all written and illustrated by David Allen Sibley, widely considered the successor to Roger Tory Peterson, who invented the modern field guide. But in the years since, I’ve become aware of how much is left to learn about the birds I thought I knew. To observe birds not just as instances but as actors is birdwatching in time, whether I’m observing moment-to-moment decisions or changes across the seasons. As if anticipating my curiosity, Sibley has now produced a different kind of book, What It’s Like to Be a Bird, whose cover promises it will explain “what birds are doing, and why.”