This was an enjoyable read, and I appreciated the title pun! Marzluff argues that, far from being ecological deserts - I confess that was my impression - the suburbs are actually a haven for a diverse population of bird life. A population that is more diverse than that in city centres (unsurprising) and that in reserves (which did surprise me). Golf courses, too, believe it or not, are excellent for birds. Suburban life creates a patchwork of different habitats that can sustain more ecological niches, as do golf courses with their contrasting habitats of green and rough, and thereby can be populated by a greater variety of birds. It's not all good news - a lot of the rarer birds are pushed out of suburbia altogether due to more competitive generalists, necessitating reserves for those species, as well as birds which are human-avoidant, but it's an initially counter-intuitive outcome of ecology that I'd never considered.

Furthermore, because Marzluff is an ornithologist himself, many of the studies that back up his claims have either been performed by him, or in the case of his army of grad students, have been supervised by him. The experiments are explained and their results given context, and it's just a very interesting and thought-provoking collage of research.