The Genius of Birds

By: Jennifer Ackerman

Narrated by: Margaret Strom

Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight.

©2016 Jennifer Ackerman. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"[Narrator Margaret] Strom sounds suitably amazed by it all, too--a fine match of material and voice." ( AudioFile)

Fascinating topic, odd narration

A great layperson's overview of bird cognition, but the narrator's odd pronunciations and weird mid-sentence pauses were distracting.

Great book, Narrator not so much

Would you listen to The Genius of Birds again? Why?

I would read this book again, but probably not listen. The narrator seems to forget that this is not a fiction story. her random pauses, and general reading cadence just does not work with a non fiction book. At first it didn't bother me, but at times, her cadence and varying tone is more distracting and I cannot focus on the information being presented.

Who was your favorite character and why?

non fiction book-no charecters

How could the performance have been better?

If the narrator did not add her own punctuation, or read it like a fictional book.

Any additional comments?

I am glad I purchased this as a physical book so I can go back and read it.

Asks the right questions

I enjoy how this book makes you think about what's really going on in a bird's brain. Ackerman does a great job of bringing in scientific studies and anecdotal evidence to create one day and to inform while still allowing for other possibilities to be true.
She is honest about the anecdotal evidence and doesn't use it as absolute truth, but still creates wonder.

Excellent book

it's mind boggling how smart birds are. even if you know a lot about this, the book lays our very thoroughly the thinking and findings in this field and it has tremendous implications for all sorts of other areas in society and science

Slightly naive.

Would you try another book from Jennifer Ackerman and/or Margaret Strom?

Probably not.

What didn’t you like about Margaret Strom’s performance?

Odd, inconsistent pace. She will heavily enunciate a particular word then pause (05:48 'asked', 13:49 'hole') apparently to further emphasize the word. Unfortunately she will follow these pauses with a more normal cadence, so if you speed up the playback the pace becomes pretty jerky.

Any additional comments?

The author takes a scientific tone but unfortunately betrays an emotional motivation. In admonishing the reader to consider the possibility that birds may be more intelligent than we has assumed the author does not hesitate to assert other animal's stupidity as a forgone conclusion. Furthermore the author makes several bizarre inferences about the 'humanness' of a left-to-right numerical orientation that flatly ignores over six hundred million people who speak right-to-left languages.
Together these oddities make for a emotionally biased praise for birds - which is unfortunate since birds are fully capable of shining just as they are.

Birds! Who knew

The "Genius of Birds" is written as a series of anecdotal stories of the author's experiences and others research findings of the surprising capabilities of different species of birds from around the world. Spoken clearly by Ms Strom, Ackerman's book reveals that the descendants of dinosaurs have skills that we mere humans never realized. In addition to the obvious ability to fly, they have culture within a social structure that is only now coming to light. Birds have characteristics that used to be thought put humans on a level far above the other animals. The ability to plan ahead, make and use tools, and have personal lives that show them to be in some cases, more capable in their environment, than many of us are in ours. If you are looking for a story, with a plot line for entertainment this book isn't for you. If however, if you want to learn about something that will amaze you and change your perspective on a part of the life on earth you thought you knew, take a flight through the subject with Ackerman and learn more about your neighbors than you ever imagined!

Very interesting book; kept my interest.

Kept my interest the entire time. Very interesting book to listen to. Would love to hear another one.

Not bad overall

I like the book, but ... it’s amazing how one false statement can throw doubt on everything else the author says. (Monarch butterflies don’t mimic the toxic Viceroy — the Viceroy mimics the toxic Monarch. That’s a stupid mistake, given how easy it is to fact check!) And I’m not so sure about some of the narrator’s pronunciations.

The Genius of Birds

This book is for bird lovers, including those who just love watching them in their own back yards to those who are keeping their life lists and traveling to areas where they can see those birds they haven’t seen yet. I am one of those people in the first group I mentioned. I love them and love to learn about them and for me this book was a revelation. I learned so much!

There is a lot of scientific research in this book, going back to Darwin and coming up to the present. The author begins by debunking the long held beliefs of many that birds are stupid and the too frequent use of the term “bird brain.” The rest of the book explores all that has been revealed by the research into various types if intelligence in a wide variety of species of birds.

The final chapter looks at how the presence of humans on the planet is affecting birds that is not unexpected but certainly concerning, with climate change at the top of the list. But the astonishing abilities of birds to adapt as they have from their dinosaur ancestors to the present can give us hope for a future for them adapting even to that.

A great read and fascinating book to listen to.

Wonderful anecdotal and scientific data

very good information about a limited number of different species, with interesting significance for human research. some of us familiar with birds and books on birds may be familiar with a lot presented here. the navigation chapter was my favorite!