Nov. 2 -- Sy Montgomery has communed with golden moon bears in Southeast Asia, pink dolphins in South America and great apes in Africa. She has shown us the "Soul of an Octopus" and "How to be a Good Creature."
For her latest book, the acclaimed naturalist and author turns her admiring gaze on a creature in our own backyard: the humble chicken.
"What the Chicken Knows" is the third tale in a "bird trilogy" that previously spotlighted hawks and hummingbirds.
"It's kind of a nice spread," Montgomery said in a conversation at her Hancock home. "These tiny little hummingbirds -- bubbles made of feathers -- these fierce, majestic hawks, and then the bird that everyone knows, even if you can't tell a robin from a crow."
"But unfortunately, most of us know chickens from our dinner plate," she said. "And that is never the best way to get to know someone."
Montgomery and her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, kept backyard chickens for many years. When a tenant moved in with her own flock of chickens, drama ensued, as the two flocks did not get along. Meanwhile, just down the road, neighbor Ashley Naglie and her family run a rooster rescue at their farm.
Montgomery, whose books are acclaimed for her deep research and close-up observations of animals, marveled at the distinct personalities she observed among the three flocks.
"This just shows you that animals continue to teach us things the longer we spend in their company," she said.
Keeping chickens is not for the faint of heart. After an ermine killed two of Montgomery's last chickens, she brought the only survivor to Naglie's farm to live out her days among her own kind.
Montgomery visits the farm often. "Hi, beauties," she greeted one flock inside a coop, where the rooster, Abraham (Hammy), was keeping a close eye on his hens.
It was Naglie who taught Montgomery something amazing about roosters: If a rooster is charging at you -- feathers ruffled, dangerous spurs threatening -- pick him up and cuddle him.
It's like soothing an angry toddler, Naglie said. "They just need love," she said.
Montgomery gently scooped up Hammy and snuggled him to her chest. "This is so good for me to be holding a chicken again," she said happily.
Montgomery once found herself defending chickens with a man seated next to her on an airplane. Chickens are "dirty and stupid and mean," the man told her.
"And then I discovered he got that impression from working on a factory farm," Montgomery said.
"I told him my father was a prisoner of war of the Japanese in World War II, and that possibly if he had met the people in the prison at that time, he would have had the same impression," she said.
They kept talking. "I don't want to make people feel bad," she said. "I want to help people see a far more interesting truth about chickens."
These sorts of conversations happen a lot on plane rides, Montgomery said. "Often people sitting next to me end up talking about animals -- I don't know how that happens," she said, eyes sparkling.
So what does the chicken know?
"The chicken knows a great deal about relationships, and their importance," she said. "That is central to a chicken's life."
They also understand spatial arrangements, she said. "They are terrific at finding their way around. Some scientific experiments have found that, even in the absence of landmarks, a chicken can find the exact center of even a space they've never been to before."
Chickens also know a lot about communication, Montgomery said. "They are able to transmit complex messages to each other," she said. "So they are having very meaningful conversations. They're not just saying bok-bok-bok."
"It may be that the most underestimated of animals still have revelations to share with us," she said.
What lessons has she learned from these creatures she has studied and written about?
"A pig taught me that a family is made out of love, not blood," she said. That was Christopher Hogwood, the beloved star of her 2006 book, "The Good, Good Pig."
"An ermine taught me how to forgive," she went on.
"Tree kangaroos showed me how to fall back in love with life again," she said. And river otters "show you how to have fun."
"Hawks showed me how to love like a god, without demanding or expecting anything back," she said. "And hummingbirds taught me how the most delicate bird in the world can perform feats that no other creature can."
Resting her hand on the head of her sweet-natured border collie, Thurber, she said, "This dog taught me that no matter how dire things might look, there's always something wonderful right around the corner."
Montgomery's current projects include a picture book for children about Fire Chief, a 42-pound snapping turtle, with illustrations by Hancock artist Matt Patterson. She's also working on a book for older children about her experiences of diving with giant manta rays off Ecuador.
And she's writing essays for a book from National Geographic by photographer Joel Sartore, of the "Photo Ark" project.
Montgomery's books reveal the wonder of creatures great and small. She wants people to respect and cherish these animals with whom we share the planet.
"To restrict yourself to just one species is impoverishing," she said. "I feel really lucky that I have friends of all taxonomies."
One of her favorite quotes is from Thales of Miletus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. "He said the universe is alive and has fire in it and is full of gods," she said.
"To me that says that the universe, our world, is far more alive, and animate, and holy, than we apprehend at first," she said. "And that is what every animal has shown me."