Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World

Tim Low is the rare author who is able to turn complex and sophisticated research into a form digestible to the general reader without ''dumbing down'' the science . . . A brilliantly readable book that not only gives Australian birds recognition long overdue, but allows for a fresh understanding of the way the world (and particularly our island continent) functions

Sean Dooley, Sydney Morning Herald

Low has written a book that is highly informative, but also most readable. Twitchers everywhere will rejoice, but there is also much here that ordinary readers will enjoy. Where Song Began teaches us all a huge amount about our birds—not least that we should be very proud of them. Thoroughly recommended

Lucy Sussex, Sunday Age

Stuffed with the fruits of long experience, wide travels (is there anywhere Tim Low hasn't been?) and deep research

The Saturday Paper

Esteemed Australian biologist Tim Low tells the incredible story of the origins of global bird life . . . And this story is exciting: ambitious in scope and filled with daring reconstructions of the past, Low's provocative study turns a number of evolutionary assumptions on their heads . . . Low's book will sensitise readers to their bird-filled environments and inject critical insights into ecological pasts and futures

Lucy Van, Readings Monthly

If you have an interest in natural history and the environment, read this book and you won't look at Australia in quite the same way again . . . Crammed with intriguing facts and ideas . . . A serious feat of synthesis that few bird observers or natural historians, let alone few authors, would have the knowledge, experience, time or access to academic resources to pull together

Bob Beale, Sunday Age

The story . . . will be a revelation for most readers . . . crammed with intriguing facts and ideas . . . with outbreaks of first-class storytelling . . . Where Song Began is a serious feat of synthesis that few bird observers or natural historians, let alone few authors, would have the knowledge, experience, time or access to academic resources to pull together. As Low points out, our kangaroo, platypus and other native mammals are so unusual that we have overlooked the amazing and more bountiful treasures we live with in our birds. This book is not the first to try to redress that balance, but, so far, it is easily the best

Sunday Age

Where Song Began has been credited with turning the map upside down, dashing upon the rocks of our shores the orthodoxy that the world's cleverest birds must have had their genesis in the northern hemisphere

Wild magazine

An impressive, eye-opening book that gives Australian birds the long overdue recognition they deserve, and shines new light on the way the world, particularly Australia, functions

Queensland Country Life