Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays Paperback – June 2, 1997

full of nice, full page photographs, but I expected a little more informative reading

Entertaining, informative, beautiful photography and a very decent price. I took this book out of the library several times and finally just bought it for keeps.

This is a very nice large format glossy coffee table type book with perhaps half of it’s pages displaying impressive and unique photographs of various members of the Corvid family of birds going about their daily business of life. This is more a work of art and joy than a scholarly research tome.The excellent photographs are accompanied by equally compelling text of the authors studies and views particularly as relates to the perplexing issue of whether these birds have intelligence and the ability to think. For the layperson and scientist alike the observations seem compelling. But the conundrum is that they have not been scientifically verified. Accepting the observations intuitively would roil present narratives of thought and consciousness so profoundly that it is a step that is being approached very slowly, deliberatively, and verifiably. As it should.But that does not mean that those outside the higher reaches of academia cannot point out what seems to be the obvious and drive the effort towards understanding and clarity, as does this author. And she does so not only in words but glorious photographs so compellingly, that for most it becomes very obvious. Given enough time the slow crawl of science is sure to confirm most if not all of what can already be found in these pages.Beautiful, well written and talented photography.

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.

My husband and I took turns reading this at the kitchen table while we took lunch or coffee breaks during the day. We have a lot of different corvids in our area, so it’s been fun to learn about them.

Beautiful book. 80% pictures 20% text. Based on the description, I was expecting more of a chapter book with pictures spread throughout. This book is definitely more aesthetic that it is informative.

We are blessed to be visited by the local ravens. They are a joy to watch with their acrobatic aerial displays and their interactions with each other. This book captures their magic.

The photo's in this book are awesome and it is chalked full of interesting information. We ordered this book for 17 year old Grandson, he is loving this book!

This is a really lovely book, full of beautiful colour photographs of Corvids: Crows, Ravens, Magpies, Jays, and Nutcrackers. The text itself is fascinating looking at the remarkable intelligence of these birds which demonstrate the ability to welcome and greet individual people, to devise strategies for finding, caching and retrieving food, creating and using tools, and much more.Corvids are intelligent birds - by ratio of brain size to body size they are similar to humans, but with memory for location that surpasses our own. The book gives numerous interesting examples of what Corvids have been seen to be able to do and includes various corvid related quotations and folk tales - all of which are fascinating.I love watching the magpies, crows and ravens in our garden, and this rather wonderful book has taught me a lot more about them.The book itself is beautifully produced with glossy paper and is enjoyable to leaf through as well as to read from cover to cover.

Great book with excellent illustrations.

purchased for my nephew but looks to be a very interesting informative book with lots of colour photos that I think he will love and find useful for his studies

Rather lovely pictures with some interesting reading.

This was a Christmas gift....a fascinating book with much general and specific information. We have a lot of these birds in our garden and their behaviour is always interesting.