Customer Reviews

Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has some interesting anecdotes on Crows, Ravens & Jays, and it does also describe much of the day to day life of these birds. The book is more than 50% full page photographs, and the photography is excellent. There are a few Brandenburg photos that have the Brandenburg touch, an animal filmed intimately close. But if you are trying to do reseach on animal intelligence, this book is too shallow for that. It glosses over some reseach and incidents that I've read about more thouroughly in other sources. I wanted to say but but there's more... or yes but that has only been observed in two locations. If you are looking for photography and some general knowledge on corvids, this is the book. If you are researching animal intelligence, try George Page for a solid introduction. I think the title is Animal Minds. And if you already know quite a bit about this subject, you know where to look better than I do.

I loved this book, simple as that. Yes, it is a coffee table-type book, but it's a great coffee table-type book. I became interested in corvids when a very young blue jay flew into my house one day only to discover that in flying into a human's home, there might be fat cats waiting to pounce. The Blue Jay ("Sky")learned quickly and never flew in again. He also learned which cat was the Hunter and which cat was the lazy cat. He avoids the Hunter at all costs, but knows the lazy one's habits so well, that he will brazenly drop down next to the comatose cat and hide his peanuts in the grass, just inches from the feline. Amazing. That's a form of identity branding, which means Sky has a mind. I also learned more about my neighborhood crows and why they'll engage in conversation with me every morning. Thanks to this book, I am indeed wiser regarding my local flying friends and will treat them with the respect they deserve.

This is not the book to buy if you want to do any kind of research on corvids. It doesn't go into depth on any one of the family of corvidae. I had thought (mistakenly) that a book published by the venerated Sierra Club would have had more substance to it. The pictures are nice, though.

This book consists of about half text and half glossy pictures of corvids (ravens, crows, magpies, and jays). The pictures are beautiful, and range from "posed" shots of individual birds to some action shots of corvids interacting with other animals. Savage is from Saskatchewan, so the pictures show these birds in all four seasons. Some additional pictures come from Europe or Siberia.

The text holds the book together but is not the focus of the book. Her central argument is that corvids are really smart, and she provides some anecdotes to that effect. The evidence is one-sided, but it's nonetheless true that corvids are smart. That said, the text is really beside the point in this beautiful book. If you want to know more about how smart these birds are, read Bernd Heinrich.

In short, it's a coffee-table book in soft cover. The pictures really are beautiful, and the text is beside the point. It seems unfair to criticize it, as some other reviewers do, for being superficial.

This book has some of the most spectacular images of crows, ravens, and magpies that Ive ever seen. Some may come across this book searching for a scientific tome rather than a beautifully constructed photo oriented coffee table book. But even the most staunch scientific mind will appreciate the beauty of these pictures. Buy it, you wont regret anything.

I have long enjoyed watching crows. This book is helpful to show other people why I have found crows so fascinating. This not a heavy scientific read. It is lite but very enjoyable. If you like crows or want to know more about crows this is a good starting place. I have also found that kids enjoy this book.

Absolutely fascinating with both pictures and text. Leaves you wanting more. Shows concrete proof that corvids (especially ravens)are possibly one of the top three most intelligent species on the planet. Even if you can't possibly bring it in yourself to believe that, it's still a great book to read and use as a reference, especially if you are interested in drawing birds. The glimpses of the signifigance of corvids in religions, folklore and literature are eye-opening, but they are glimpses and not really fleshed out. It's a small quibble--this is one of the most beautiful AND thought-provoking books I own

Savage's entertaining book explores the behaviors of the most intelligent of birds: the crows, ravens, magpies and jays. Beautifully illustrated with 61 color photographs, this large-format volume uses the latest scientific and anecdotal evidence to show how these birds, slaves to instinct in such things as nest-building, will, nevertheless, use their powers of learning and observation to improvise repairs.

She explores the social and family lives of jays who apprentice younger birds in rearing new families, ravens showing off flying expertise in courtship games, crows evaluating food. While perfectly willing to speculate about the mental processes behind bird decisions, Savage is always careful to separate fancy from scientific fact. The writing is clear and entertaining and the pictures are spectacular.

I must have bought this book without reading the reviews. I wanted savvy text; I opened the package and found a coffee table book. And on the coffee table it will be stored. Four stars as a coffee table book. Two for content.

It is a quick read. A few steps up from a Reader's Digest level. I did learn from it.

When I got this book last week, I was initially somewhat disappointed. I had expected something more humorous or absurd. I mean, a "coffee table book" about CROWS?! Sounds like the ultimate dada, LOL! When I looked through the book, I also instantly saw a major whooper: the author (or perhaps her editor - the error is in the photo captions) claim that Hooded Crows are black and...wait for it...WHITE.

WHAT?????

I live in Sweden, where there are Hooded Crows everywhere, and I can assure you that they are, of course, black and grey. And yes, you can check a standard, scientific reference work at your university library, unless you don't believe me. :-D

Be that as it may, when I actually started reading the book, I realized that the rest of it isn't that bad, after all. As another reviewer pointed out: it depends on what exactly you are looking for. It's not a field guide to crows and their allies, nor is it a original scientific study. Rather, "Bird Brains" is a popularized introduction to the subject of crows and their intelligence, intended for the general reader. The author, Candance Savage, is a Canadian author and nature-lover (and yes, crow-lover!). The book is lavishly illustrated with photos of crows, ravens, jays, jackdaws and magpies. All photos are in color. Some are quite dramatic, for instance a photo of a crow challenging a Bald Eagle, and another showing magpies sitting on bisons, not to mention a photo of two magpies chasing a crow! (As you might have guessed, I'm a magpie-lover myself.) The text is pretty basic, but it's well-written and interesting. I think the book could be an excellent gift to both adults and teenagers, including people with only a passing interest in birds.

The main point of "Bird Brains" is that crows, ravens and other corvids are surprisingly intelligent creatures. In laboratory tests, ravens have showed abilities on the level of chimpanzees, and above the level of monkeys. One raven could count to six, another learned how to fill a small cup with water and moisturize his food, simply by observing a laboratory assistant. The raven wasn't specifically trained to perform this task - he learned it anyway. Both ravens and crows can mimick human speech, just like parrots or mynabirds, and the most humorous situation in the book involves a crow that could say "Three, two, one" and then mimick the sound of an explosion. Apparently, the crow had spent some quality time near a building site.

The most spooky situation mentioned in the book involved a raven that learned to say "Come" and somehow taught another raven to join him every time he uttered the command! The ravens lived in a laboratory, and were mimicking their trainer. Flexible instincts? Real intelligence? A little bit of both? A short work like this cannot answer the question, just pose it. One thing is certain: if a corvid would start talking to me outside the local shopping mould, I would start running!

On a more sober note, "Bird Brains" also mentions situations where corvids don't act very intelligently, where they are indeed driven by pure instinct. For instance, crows and their relatives don't recognize their own chicks, but automatically feeds whatever happens to be in the nest (something not mentioned in the book is that this dumbness is taken advantage of by cuckoos - at least one species of cuckoo specializes in parasitizing corvids). Only when the chicks leave the nest do their parents start recognizing them, even in large flocks. Savage also mentions several instances of rank stupidity among the jackdaws studied by the famous Konrad Lorenz. Apparently, the jackdaws attacked poor Lorenz every time he held up a black object, thinking the object was a jackdaw in need of assistance!

Still, corvids (the quaint scientific term for crowbirds) are remarkably intelligent, and this book may wet your appetite for learning more about the intelligence of birds. Perhaps I'll order Irene Pepperberg's books about Alex next. It's about that other fascinating group of intelligent birds: parrots.

Four stars! (Yepp, I had to delete one star because of that Hooded Crow thing, no offense.)