Birds in Flight: The Art and Science of How Birds Fly Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this book because I enjoy watching birds in flight and wanted to learn more about the science than I had been able to learn by observing them. Unfortunately I found the book light on details and very repetitive with the information it does have. If you want a simple explanation of lift, propulsion, Bernoulli's principle and a somewhat misleading explanation of induced drag and wingtip vortices then this book may be what you are looking for. I however only had two or three moments where I got a glimpse of what I was looking for. The author describes a lot of different types of flight, take off and landing but the aerodynamic explanations are all very similar and scientifically shallow. The author is an ex-pilot with no scientific background and a limited understanding of fluid dynamics.
There are a handful of nice photographs in the book but a surprising number of the pictures are of very poor quality. The author describes how much he likes his photos that are blurred or taken in poor lighting at grainy ISO's and then brightened/contrasted far too much in post processing. I do some amateur photography and would be embarrassed to publish photos like that.
I've been pretty hard on the book because I want buyers to know what they are getting. However if you are not looking to REALLY understand the science of bird flight and you don't want a coffee table book with pretty pictures you may be happy with this book. If you really want to understand the science of bird flight go outside and watch them carefully or look for a different reference.

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