Charlie Bingham is a UK based nature writer and author of The Life Affirming Magic of Birds. After completing a degree in archaeology at the University of York, Charlie began to reconnect with nature in her mid 20’s. She found that birds especially seemed to have the ability to help her through difficult times and made it her life’s mission to share her love and passion with a wide audience. Charlie’s passion for the natural world shines across her social media platforms and in her work as a digital communications specialist and event manager for nature based charities. Charlie has written for various platforms and publications including Conker Magazine, Bird Table, The Guardian and Bald Hiker.

Introduction (6)

1. Ancient Times
The Literary Foundations of Ornithology in Ancient Civilizations (12)
Birds in Ancient Egypt
Aristotle's History of Animals: Early Avian Knowledge
Pliny the Elder and the Legacy of Naturalis Historia
Ancient Chinese Literature and the Symbolic World of Birds

2. Middle Ages
A Global Perspective (50)
Early Christian Allegory and Symbolism: Fifth- to Twelfth-century Europe
Scholastic Natural History: Thirteenth- to Fifteenth-century Europe
Medieval Islamic Ornithological Traditions
East Asian Ornithological Works: Tenth- to the Fifteenth Century
Indigenous American and Andean Ornithological Traditions
Medieval Legacy: Between the Fifth and Fifteenth Centuries

3. The Early Modern Period
Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries (102)
Introduction
Foundations of Early Modern Ornithology
Conrad Gesner's Historia Animalium (1555), Switzerland
Ulisse Aldrovandi's Ornithologiae (1599–1603), Italy
John Ray and Francis Willughby's Ornithologiae Libri Tres (1676–1678), England
Eleazar Albin and George Edwards, England
Mark Catesby's The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731–1743), England/North America
Gilbert White
Maria Sibylla Merian and Other Women in Early Modern Ornithology
Global Perspectives in Early Modern Ornithology

4. 19th Century Ornithology
The Evolution of Ornithology (160)
A New Age of Birds
John James Audubon and The Birds of America
John Gould and his Empire of Birds
Darwin, Wallace and the Theory of Evolution
The Ornithology of Variation
The Rise of Women in Ornithology
The Global Reach of Evolutionary Ornithology
A New Ornithological Mindset
Field Guides and Conservation Movements

5. Modern Ornithology
Ornithology Takes Flight (214)
A Brand New Era
Roger Tory Peterson and the Field Guide Revolution
Ernst Mayr and the Systematics and the Origins of Species
David Lack and the Rise of Behavioural Ecology
Rachel Carson and the Silent Spring
David Attenborough and The Life of Birds
Tim Birkhead and The Wisdom of Birds
Noah Strycker's The Thing with Feathers
The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk
Scott Weidensaul's A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
Modern Bird Field Guides
Conclusion

Index (262)
Further reading (269)
Picture credits (270)
About the Author (271)
Acknowledgments (272)