Why don't you joke with pigeons

Igor Permnikov - about the book "Six Faces of Life"

Sometimes an exciting narrative, full of both lyrical sketches and non -trivial scientific facts, can be folded literally from nothing - for example, it is enough to go to the forest house, in which nothing happened at all for many years, and take a closer look at nature. This is exactly what the writer Nina Berton, who was enthusiastic by biology, collected his observations under the cover of the book “Six Faces of Life”, which Igor Permnikov read and appreciated specifically for “Gorky”.

Starting from February 24, 2022, we were all in the face of the advancing barbarism, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values ​​of humanism - including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editorial office of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that the world remains in the world and fiction.

Nina Berton. Six faces of life. The story of a sensitive house and nature, full of many languages. M.: Hell Marginum Press, 2022. Translation from Swedish Nina Fedorova. Content . Fragment

In short, in his book “Six Grands of Life”, the Swedish poetess Nina Berton talks about nature. It all starts with the fact that the author after the death of his mother enters the summer house in the forest, where he faces a variety of manifestations of life, which he sequentially describes. The principle of narrative is quite simple: Berton writes about what he sees (or hears). It all starts from the squirrel, which rustles and jumps on the attic of the writer, preventing her from falling asleep on the first night in the house. Burton in response takes decisive actions, namely, he tells readers everything that knows about proteins. And she knows a lot: in addition to passion for literature and philosophy, she has another passion - biology. Then, during the narrative, we will meet chickens, pigeons, ants, crows, bees, tits and many other inhabitants of the Swedish hinterland. Burton tells curious facts about each of them, from time to time interspersing it with his own impressions, sometimes banal, sometimes very inspiring. The author seems to want to say: I am also part of nature! And the knowledge of nature cannot affect the knowledgeable it. This is how the "six faces of life" are arranged. Now let's look at some of the animal writers met in more detail.

Take, for example, the same pigeons. What do you know about pigeons? We will conduct an experiment and see what the author of these lines is known personally. So, “pigeons are city rats,” the poet familiar to the author asserted. On the other hand, the dove is considered a symbol of the world - it brought Noah an olive branch. Perhaps all: knowledge about pigeons is completely exhausted. Burton, on the other hand, is immediately shared by very unusual gastronomic details: "The pigeons tasted very tender, so the pigeons-knobs have domesticated ten thousand years ago, at about the same time with chickens." Moreover, the pigeons began to live next to people because the cornices and balconies were very reminiscent of rocky ledges in their natural habitat. That is, even the usual streets can be seen a little differently if you look at them with the eyes of pigeons - and the city, as it were, by the wave of a magic wand, will turn into a romantic rocky gorge. Similar tricks are often found in “six faces of life”, which is another obvious dignity of the book.

At the same time, the author often mentions cultural references associated with animals. For example, telling about the raven, Burton recalls the cycle “Raven” of the American poet Ted Hughes. However, in the book, even culture is not an area exclusively human. For example, the writer, debunking the myth of the stupidity and inconsistency of pigeons, first talks about their obvious talents:

“At a speed of eighty kilometers per hour, they overcome thousands of miles over an unfamiliar landscape, and in observation they have no equal. When the pigeons were shown a series of consistent aerial photographs of the terrain, they noticed the differences missed by people. Therefore, the American coastal guard trained them to look for the specks of rescue vests, and then the helicopters took the birds on board and flew around the water area where the shipwreck occurred. Pigeons noticed people even among high waves. ”

Then Burton speaks of things of completely unimaginable: some pigeons learned to distinguish between the work of immunist artists and cubic artists, which, for example, surpassed many people who are completely not interested in painting. Now I would like to tell another uncultured and unpleasant person: “Oh, you would learn from smart and wonderful pigeons before opening your mouth!”

“After a short training, they distinguished the work of Picasso and Monet, they could even distinguish cubists like a marriage from impressionists, for example from Renoir. Through special signals for color, pattern and textures, they were also trained to evaluate the paintings as beautiful or ugly. ”

In addition, pigeons believe well and can arrange pictures with nine objects in proper order, and they also have a completely exceptional memory: in a year they remembered thousands of pictures, recognizing them even in a negative image and in an inverted form. Generally speaking, pigeons recognize individual individuals not only in their own flocks: they are able to distinguish individual people and can determine emotional expressions in their photographs - for example, anger and sadness. So think twice before contacting the pigeons - they will probably remember you, but what will happen next - God news. We are afraid to even suggest. Joking jokes, but the author fairly summarizes his story about pigeons by the fact that after listing all the obvious advantages of these birds, it is simply a shame to despise them.

Or, for example, Burton talks about the phenomenon of murmuration - when flocks of birds in tens of thousands of individuals are spinning in the sky and form bizarre figures, resembling either a fingerprint, then a vague haze, or even worse. How is it possible? At first, scientists managed to establish that, since the field of view of birds is wider and perception as a whole faster than in people, every bird observes the family of others. However, this did not explain how tens of thousands of birds are able to gather in something like a single thinking figure and at the same time not to face each other. Birds, without reducing speeds, can change the direction over the seventieth fraction of a second, and with such speed, ordinary communication is impossible. In addition, each bird individually reacts slower. All this leads to the question: maybe they maintain some invisible direct contact?

In general, it is. Burton writes that in the 1990s special nerve cells were opened, which excite the behavior observed in others. They were called mirror neurons. Thanks to them, we become infected with each other with laughter, gestures or yawning. And it is with their help that in bird flocks, inconspicuous movements spread, since in social groups it is necessary to quickly “get used to” into the situation.

In the end, we will also talk about poetic deviations, which from time to time the writer dilutes the curious, but sometimes somewhat dry facts. As we said, people are part of nature. And although we do not have the huge set of amazing skills that animals from birth possess, such as the ability to remember thousands of pictures or hear exquisite musical tones that are distinguished by singing birds (some of them, by the way, sing exclusively for our own pleasure, simply exercising in the art of singing - right like us), we have a great gift of imagination, allowing us to present all this or even go on an imaginary journey At the same time, the same birds over some unusual glacier. In particular, if the imagination is to develop, to cherish it, to cherish and take care of it as a domestic animal: to feed him with curious facts, read poetry to him and show beautiful paintings - so as not to be dumber than a dove, at least. This is where books like “six faces of life” are needed.

“I imagined how lakes, rivers and mountains pour into the memory of flying birds faster than that of other preschoolers. After all, they need to bind the latitude everywhere with longitude. Their senses absorb everything around, and since their eyes are located on the sides, their field of view is wide. An infrasound of the motion of waves is added above the sea, but the most important thing is the feeling of earth. In its incredible depths, melted iron flows, creating magnetic currents along which birds are guided, like iron sawdust. This provides them with a feeling of direction, which is only an interference of urban equipment. After all, they live in much more intense contact with the movements of the Earth and the Sun than we are. ”