The Genius of Birds

May 2, 2016
Popular science writer Ackerman (Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold) puts paid to the notion of being birdbrained with this survey of the observational and experimental evidence for impressive bird cognition. She explores birds' capacities for tool use, socialization, navigation, mimicry, discrimination, and possibly even theory of mind. Ackerman interviews specialists without overindulging in research travelogue, keeping centered on her feathered subjects rather than on the human interactions, and urges against anthropomorphizing bird behavior, correlating specific behaviors to generalized intelligence, or benchmarking the value of avian mental skills to that of humans. But her most interesting bits of trivia play to that urge: undergraduates who fail at mental simulations at which some birds succeed, bowerbirds trained to distinguish good human art from bad, Thomas Jefferson's mockingbird singing "popular songs of the day," and pigeons learning to open automatic cafeteria doors. Though Ackerman's focus is mainly ethological, she also speculates on the possible relationships between complex task completion and evolutionary fitness. This light popular science read doesn't present much new framing or insight; Ackerman seeks out current research to discover a few surprises, such as a possible role for olfactory cues in navigation, but doesn't point to or create any big conceptual shifts.

March 1, 2016
Science writer Ackerman (Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold, 2010, etc.) looks at the new science surrounding avian intelligence. The takeaway: calling someone a birdbrain is a compliment. And in any event, as Ackerman observes early on, "intelligence is a slippery concept, even in our own species, tricky to define and tricky to measure." Is a bird that uses a rock to break open a clamshell the mental equivalent of a tool-using primate? Perhaps that's the wrong question, for birds are so unlike humans that "it's difficult for us to fully appreciate their mental capabilities," given that they're really just small, feathered dinosaurs who inhabit a wholly different world from our once-arboreal and now terrestrial one. Crows and other corvids have gotten all the good publicity related to bird intelligence in recent years, but Ackerman, who does allow that some birds are brighter than others, points favorably to the much-despised pigeon as an animal that "can remember hundreds of different objects for long periods of time, discriminate between different painting styles, and figure out where it's going, even when displaced from familiar territory by hundreds of miles." Not bad for a critter best known for bespattering statues in public parks. Ackerman travels far afield to places such as Barbados and New Caledonia to study such matters as memory, communication, and decision-making, the last largely based on visual cues--though, as she notes, birds also draw ably on other senses, including smell, which in turn opens up insight onto "a weird evolutionary paradox that scientists have puzzled over for more than a decade"--a matter of the geometry of, yes, the bird brain. Ackerman writes with a light but assured touch, her prose rich in fact but economical in delivering it. Fans of birds in all their diversity will want to read this one.

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April 15, 2016

Ackerman (Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold; Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body) documents the amazing and almost unbelievable abilities of birds to migrate great distances, remember where thousands of food items are stored, and adapt to nonnative areas. Also described are the virtuoso skills of birdsong (some creatures are capable of hundreds of vocalizations) and the artistry of nest builders, such as bowerbirds, which favor artificial blue objects. More than 50 pages of notes support the eminently readable text. Other engaging chapters detail birds' use of tools, problem-solving skills, and intelligence and language-acquiring talents, especially those of some parrots. The author's extensive review of world biological literature, contacts with experts, and global travel enhance this fascinating title. Ackerman demonstrates that in many cases the most successful birds have, perhaps not surprisingly, the largest brains in proportion to body size. VERDICT Highly recommended for all interested in natural history, behavior, and ecotravel.--Henry T. Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia

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