The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration

The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration
Bernd Heinrich

The story and science of how animals find their way home.Home is the place we long for most, when we feel we have travelled too far, for too long. Since boyhood, acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has returned every year to a beloved patch of woods in his native western Maine. But while it’s the pull of nostalgia that informs our desire to go back, what is it that drives the homing instinct in animals?Heinrich explores the fascinating science behind the mysteries of animal migration: how geese imprint true visual landscape memory over impossible distances; how the subtlest of scent trails are used by many creatures, from fish to insects to amphibians, to pinpoint their home; and how the tiniest of songbirds are equipped for solar and magnetic orienteering over vast distances. Most movingly, Heinrich chronicles the spring return of a pair of sandhill cranes to their pond in the Alaska tundra. With his marvellously evocative prose, Heinrich portrays the psychological state of the newly arrived birds, articulating just what their yearly return truly means, to the birds and to those fortunate enough to witness this transcendently beautiful ritual.The Homing Instinct is an enchanting study of this phenomenon of the natural world, reminding us that to discount our own feelings toward home is to ignore biology itself.

Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration

Copyright (#ulink_52c913de-cb40-588b-a976-50fc58834d1c)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014.

First published in hardback in the US by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2014.

Text and illustrations copyright © Bernd Heinrich 2014

Cover photograph © Antagain / Getty Images

The author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007594054

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007594061

Version: 2015-04-22

CONTENTS

Cover (#u86f17ac5-4aa7-5b07-bd70-520675b83c34)

Title Page (#ud15a4144-4a40-57e6-b598-73c42722fb35)

Copyright (#u33fc8821-b6c5-531d-a274-c3657b95eb72)

Preface (#u6377da0a-6478-5424-bb26-dd7bb85e3c33)

Introduction (#u33d43583-b8fa-58b8-b37d-f6f34df7cf87)

I. HOMING (#ubc69464a-d9e2-59db-be05-270a8cd4216b)

Cranes Coming Home (#u7c1fd44f-e3e8-53a0-9bec-ff448a1fb98d)

Beelining (#ue6751a10-a6c7-5cc2-98f6-31947ad20b26)

Getting to a Good Place (#uf3a156a3-dd3f-5465-b73e-02249414b001)

By the Sun, Stars, and Magnetic Compass (#uded56845-8313-5c9d-8c48-d515f8a491b5)

Smelling Their Way Home (#litres_trial_promo)

Picking the Spot (#litres_trial_promo)

II. HOME-MAKING AND MAINTAINING (#litres_trial_promo)

Architectures of Home (#litres_trial_promo)

Home-making in Suriname (#litres_trial_promo)

Home Crashers (#litres_trial_promo)

Charlotte II: A Home Within a Home (#litres_trial_promo)

The Communal Home (#litres_trial_promo)

III. HOMING IMPLICATIONS (#litres_trial_promo)

The In and Out of Boundaries (#litres_trial_promo)

Of Trees, Rocks, a Bear, and a Home (#litres_trial_promo)

On Home Ground (#litres_trial_promo)

Fire, Hearth, and Home (#litres_trial_promo)

Homing to the Herd (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Further Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Books by Bernd Heinrich (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)