Today I returned the final, edited files of the book manuscript to the publisher. It’s been a long summer of ‘fine distinctions and nice judgements’, to quote my editor, the inimitable Hugh Brazier. Now that’s all finalised, I thought that it was time to share the chapter titles with you – here goes:

Introduction: Encounters with birds and flowers

1         Origins of a partnership

              Understanding 50 million years of bird and flower evolution

2          Surprising variety

              The astounding diversity of pollinating birds

3           Keeping it in the family

                 Accounts of the different groups of bird pollinators

4          A flower’s point of view

              How many plants are bird-pollinated, and where are they found?

5         In the eye of the beholder

              What do bird flowers look like?

6          Goods and services

              The enticements given to birds for pollinating flowers

7         Misaligned interests

              The ongoing conflicts between flowers and birds

8          Senses and sensitivities

              How bird brains shape the flowers that they pollinate

9          Codependent connections

                Networks of interacting flowers and birds

10        Hitchhikers, drunks and killers

              The other actors in the network and how they affect the main players

11        The limits to specialisation

              How ‘specialised’ are the relationships between birds and flowers?

12         Islands in the sea, islands in the sky

                  Isolation, in oceans or in mountains, results in some remarkable interactions

13         The curious case of Europe

              Why did we believe that Europe had no bird-pollinated flowers?

14         ‘After the Manner of Bees’

              The origins of our understanding of birds as pollinators, and their cultural associations

15        Feathers and fruits

                Birds as pollinators of edible wild plants and domesticated crops

16        Urban flowers for urban birds

              Bird pollination in cities and gardens

17       Bad birds and feral flowers

              The impact of invasive species

18         What escapes the eye

                 The decline and extinction of bird–flower relationships

19         The restoration of hope

                  People as conservationists of birds and their flowers

There you have it! I’m incredibly excited that the book is now just about finished (I still have to proof read the typeset text and produce an index) and I look forward to finally having a copy in my hands. Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship is available for pre-order from Pelagic Publishing, or via online bookshops.