The Genius of Birds

I really enjoyed this. Like talking a walk with an extremely knowledgeable friend while she points out birds, recounts stories, and explains things that you're embarrassed not to have known you didn't know. I love birds, and now I understand them a tiny bit more. I definitely appreciate them more. The book is a bit dense, but her story telling returns again and again.

I've read a few books on animal intelligence, and I feel unconvinced. This book is not bad (certainly much better than Soul of an Octopus, a truly awful piece of garbage), but I think it makes two common mistakes. The first is anthropomorphizing animals. My favorite example is from jays “cheating on their partners” which requires a lot of intelligence of terms of not getting caught. Maybe they're just spreading their DNA? Maybe they just be sluts. There's no reason to think that the birds are trying not to “get caught” but the author imagines a soap opera where the birds are carefully crafting romantic trysts with one another, so bird smart.
Second is that the examples of intelligence are only impressive if you start from the assumption that the animals are dumb to begin with. If you start from the position of “evolution crafted this behavior for a very particular reason that we might not understand yet, but there is a reason.” If a crow solves a puzzle, is it consciously planning everything out and imagining a blueprint in its mind, or is this just following a evolutionary response to not starving to death?
In general, these books never really get past the initial hurdle of “what is intelligence?” You can make the definition as broad or narrow as you want just to say that anything or anyone is intelligent.

I've just become a Master Naturalist, and one of the realms of nature that has begun to fascinate me is the world of birds.

This book has wiped away all the things I thought I knew about birds. Birds, research has showed us, are not “birdbrains,” but are surprisingly intelligent. Birds learn from their experiences in the world, and they are able to share their new knowledge with others.

This book is full of fascinating knowledge about birds derived from recent research.

If you have interest in birds, this is a book you will not want to miss.

I would have liked this to be a lot longer – even more fun bird facts please!

The author really likes her bird puns but mercifully she dials them down a bit after the first couple of chapters.

It's great to see that the trend against anthropomorphism-phobia is growing strong among science writers (and some scientists). Observations based on the assumption that animal intelligence is likely different from human intelligence in degree rather than in kind have so much more explanatory power. Also, they're just a lot more interesting. Songbirds sing and bowerbirds build in order to attract mates, yes, but that tells us about as much about their psychology and is about as interesting as an analogous observation made about humans would be. Ackerman points out that the songbird gets a big shot of dopamine when he nails a song particularly well – and she's not afraid to surmise that this likely means that he gets a kick out of being awesome regardless of the outcome in the romantic department. She admits that it's not unreasonable to suspect the satin bowerbird of possessing a sense of artistry (I mean COME ON) given how much time he spends perfecting (admiring?) his own creation and learning his craft.

I like to ponder the fact that we're all robots programmed by evolution, trapped in the illusion of free will, and deluded about our own significance as much as the next person, but when it comes to books about animals I'd much rather hear from scientists who are drawn to questions and theories about animal internality and subjective experience.