Richard Symanski’s account of a trip with Nancy Burley to study waxbill
finches in Northern Australia, Black-Hearts: Ecology in outback Australia, is an
odd book. A noted behavioural ornithologist, Burley aimed to test her theories
of mate choice in wild finch populations and compare them to results from her
years of work on captive birds. It wasn’t a happy experience. Symanski (married
to Burley) sets off to plan the study sites, the students are recruited in the
US, the funds are in place—and then it all goes wrong.
The students can’t quite do the stuff they said they could.…
