[book review] Nature's Music: The Science of Birdsong Peter Marler and Hans Slabbekoorn, Eds.
Review by Bernard Lohr Science, Vol 307, Issue 5716, 1723-1724, 18 March 2005 First paragraph of review: Describing and deciphering the enormous variety and complexity of sounds that birds produce was Luis Felipe Baptista's lifelong passion. Sadly, Baptista, the curator of ornithology at the California Academy of Sciences, passed away in June of 2000, leaving the field without his keen enthusiasm and broad-ranging expertise. He was widely admired for his prolific research record, which included important contributions to the fields of song learning, conservation bioacoustics, and the parallels between birdsong and music. He also possessed a well-known desire to bring the sometimes arcane and highly technical arena of birdsong biology to a more general audience. After his untimely death, a large group of his many colleagues and friends convened a conference in his honor. Nature's Music: The Science of Birdsong grew out of that symposium.
