Birds of Prey (Smith novel) is at war with England. Sir Francis Courteney and his son Hal attack ships of the Dutch East India Company off the coast of Africa. They are betrayed and Sir Francis is executed. Hal winds up working for Prester John. Film and TV rights to the book were bought by Corona Pictures but as of 2013 no adaptation has been filmed. Birds of Prey (Smith novel) Birds of Prey is a 1997 novel by Wilbur Smith set in the late 17th century. The novel was the first in the third sequence of the Courtney series of novels, and as of
Novel world method their warning signals (see e.g. ). The novel world was first developed by professor Rauno Alatalo and professor Johanna Mappes to circumvent the methodological problem that predators such as adult birds may possess learned information about prey colours, and juvenile birds may also have genetically transmitted knowledge: bird species can, for instance, have innate tendencies to avoid certain colours. By bringing the predator into a novel environment where its knowledge about prey appearance had been nullified, the researchers aimed at a better understanding of the selection pressures that the first warning signals emerging in a prey population could have faced.