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Susan McCarthy is co-author with Marjorie Ingall of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies. Ingall & McCarthy write Sorrywatch.com, a website which analyzes apologies. McCarthy also writes about wildlife and animal behavior. She’s co-author of the international bestseller When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, and author of Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild. Not literally raised by wolves, McCarthy lives in San Francisco.

Category: Nests

  • We love our stinky kids

    The story about the smelly babies isn't true. Birds don't reject their nestlings if people have handled them and gotten human scent all over them. Most birds can't smell much, anyway. (But don't say this around a vulture. Or a kiwi. Or a fulmar.)  I don't know how this story got started, but I certainly…

  • Ugh, paparazzi

    Sometimes you see a barn and you know it has owls.  This one is airy, with many escape  routes. As we walked to the door, a barn owl (Tyto alba) silently flew out. A helpful person had put up an owl box. Owls had accepted it. Not recently, judging by the size of the charnel…