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Author: Nathan Emery Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400882869 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
Why birds are smarter than we think Birds have not been known for their high IQs, which is why a person of questionable intelligence is sometimes called a "birdbrain." Yet in the past two decades, the study of avian intelligence has witnessed dramatic advances. From a time when birds were seen as simple instinct machines responding only to stimuli in their external worlds, we now know that some birds have complex internal worlds as well. This beautifully illustrated book provides an engaging exploration of the avian mind, revealing how science is exploding one of the most widespread myths about our feathered friends—and changing the way we think about intelligence in other animals as well. Bird Brain looks at the structures and functions of the avian brain, and describes the extraordinary behaviors that different types of avian intelligence give rise to. It offers insights into crows, jays, magpies, and other corvids—the “masterminds” of the avian world—as well as parrots and some less-studied species from around the world. This lively and accessible book shows how birds have sophisticated brains with abilities previously thought to be uniquely human, such as mental time travel, self-recognition, empathy, problem solving, imagination, and insight. Written by a leading expert and featuring a foreword by Frans de Waal, renowned for his work on animal intelligence, Bird Brain shines critical new light on the mental lives of birds.
Author: Nathan Emery Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400882869 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
Why birds are smarter than we think Birds have not been known for their high IQs, which is why a person of questionable intelligence is sometimes called a "birdbrain." Yet in the past two decades, the study of avian intelligence has witnessed dramatic advances. From a time when birds were seen as simple instinct machines responding only to stimuli in their external worlds, we now know that some birds have complex internal worlds as well. This beautifully illustrated book provides an engaging exploration of the avian mind, revealing how science is exploding one of the most widespread myths about our feathered friends—and changing the way we think about intelligence in other animals as well. Bird Brain looks at the structures and functions of the avian brain, and describes the extraordinary behaviors that different types of avian intelligence give rise to. It offers insights into crows, jays, magpies, and other corvids—the “masterminds” of the avian world—as well as parrots and some less-studied species from around the world. This lively and accessible book shows how birds have sophisticated brains with abilities previously thought to be uniquely human, such as mental time travel, self-recognition, empathy, problem solving, imagination, and insight. Written by a leading expert and featuring a foreword by Frans de Waal, renowned for his work on animal intelligence, Bird Brain shines critical new light on the mental lives of birds.
Author: Candace Savage Publisher: ISBN: 9781771644259 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 152
Book Description
Internationally celebrated nature writer Candace Savage presents the Corvid family-- surprisingly bright, brassy, and colorful birds--in a remarkable collection of full-color, close-up photographs by some of the world's best wildlife photographers. Birds have long been viewed as the archetypal featherbrains--beautiful but dumb. But according to naturalist Candace Savage, "bird brain," as a pejorative expression, should be rendered obsolete by new research on the family of corvids: crows and their close relations. The ancients who regarded these remarkable birds as oracles, bringers of wisdom, or agents of vengeance were on the right track, for corvids appear to have powers of abstraction, memory, and creativity that put them on a par with many mammals, even higher primates. Bird Brains presents these bright, brassy, and surprisingly colorful birds in a remarkable collection of full-color, close-up photographs by some two dozen of the world's best wildlife photographers. Savage's lively, authoritative text describes the life and behavior of sixteen representative corvid species that inhabit North America and Europe. Drawing on recent research, she describes birds that recognize each other as individuals, call one another by "name," remember and relocate thousands of hidden food caches, engage in true teamwork and purposeful play, and generally exhibit an extraordinary degree of sophistication.
Author: Chuck Mullin Publisher: Unbound Publishing ISBN: 1783527862 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 143
Book Description
When Chuck Mullin began to suffer from anxiety and depression aged seventeen, she turned to drawing comics as a way to make sense of her experience. She soon found that pigeons were the perfect subjects through which to explore the complexities of living with mental illness, and several years later, her funny, quirky birds have won legions of fans online. From Bad Times to Positivity, the comics in Bird Brain use humour to provide a glimpse of what’s going on in Chuck’s head: dissociative episodes; cycles of anxiety; her struggle to accept she’s not alone; and the power of optimism on the days it’s possible.
Author: Guy Kennaway Publisher: Random House ISBN: 0224093991 Category : Aristocracy (Social class) Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
A diehard pheasant-shooting landowner called 'Banger' is killed in a shooting incident and returns to earth as a pheasant. His long-suffering family think his death was an accident, but his gun dogs know it was murder.
Author: Harris Philip Zeigler Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262240369 Category : Birds Languages : en Pages : 452
Book Description
This book provides the first comprehensive and current review of considerable progress made over the past decade in analyzing neural and behavioral mechanisms mediating visually guided behavior in birds.The visual capacities of birds rival even those of primates, and their visual system probably reflects the operation of a ground plan common to all vertebrates. This book provides the first comprehensive and current review of considerable progress made over the past decade in analyzing neural and behavioral mechanisms mediating visually guided behavior in birds.The book's five major sections deal with the visual world of birds, the organization of avian visual systems, the development and plasticity of visual structure and function, visuomotor control mechanisms, and cognitive processes. The introduction to each section discusses the nature and significance of the problem areas, providing a context for the chapters to follow, which review the current status of research on a specific problem. The contributors are an international assemblage of researchers, representing a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ornithology to neurophysiology and including ethology, experimental psychology, anatomy, and developmental neurobiology. For the ethologist, avian behavior is the source of a wide variety of species-typical fixed action patterns; for the experimental psychologist, birds are the subject of choice for studies of conditioning, learning, and cognitive processes; for the neurobiologist they provide model systems for studying developmental processes, sensory mechanisms, orientation, and motor control. For these reasons, research on the avian brain and behavior occupies an increasingly important place in contemporary behavioral biology.
Author: Johanna Sinisalo Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers ISBN: 0720613825 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
From the author of the critically acclaimed Troll, the new novel from Johanna Sinisalo is full of her trademark style, surreal invention, and savage humor Set in Australasia, this is the story of a young Finnish couple who have embarked on the hiking trip of a lifetime, with Heart of Darkness as their only reading matter. Conrad’s dark odyssey turns out to be a prescient choice as their trip turns into a tortuous thriller, with belongings disappearing, and they soon find themselves at the mercy of untamed nature, seemingly directed by the local kakapo—a highly intellegent parrot threatened with extinction. This is a skillful portrait of the unquenchable desire of Westerners for the pure and the primitive, revealing the dark side of the explorer’s desire—the insatiable need to control, to invade, and leave one’s mark on the landscape. But what happens when nature starts to fight back?
Author: Jennifer Ackerman Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0399563121 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
“Lovely, celebratory. For all the belittling of ‘bird brains,’ [Ackerman] shows them to be uniquely impressive machines . . .” —New York Times Book Review “A lyrical testimony to the wonders of avian intelligence.” —Scientific American An award-winning science writer tours the globe to reveal what makes birds capable of such extraordinary feats of mental prowess Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. According to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores their newly discovered brilliance and how it came about. As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research, Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are shifting our view of what it means to be intelligent. At once personal yet scientific, richly informative and beautifully written, The Genius of Birds celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures. Ackerman is also the author of Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast.
Author: Jennifer Ackerman Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0735223033 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 369
Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, a radical investigation into the bird way of being, and the recent scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds -- how they live and how they think. “There is the mammal way and there is the bird way.” But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries –– What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They are also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own: deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, infanticide, but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play. Some of these extraordinary behaviors are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of, well, birdness: a mother bird that kills her own infant sons, and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds as if they were her own; a bird that collaborates in an extraordinary way with one species—ours—but parasitizes another in gruesome fashion; birds that give gifts and birds that steal; birds that dance or drum, that paint their creations or paint themselves; birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders and birds that summon playmates with a special call—and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, from the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, Jennifer Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect, in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behavior, birds vary. It is what we love about them. As E.O Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.
Author: Patrick Merrell Publisher: Storey Publishing ISBN: 1603426418 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 325
Book Description
Why does the Blue Grouse migrate north in the winter? Why did Lewis Carroll use a dodo bird to represent himself in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"? What are the bird names that appear most often as crossword clues? Birdwatchers and puzzle fans alike will delight in "Bird Brainteasers," a fresh collection of puzzles, games, and avian amusements by noted puzzle creator Patrick Merrell. This book is packed with bird-themed crosswords, visual puzzles, and the first-ever Birdoku challenges. Interspersed throughout are fascinating and amusing bird facts, trivia, and lore, drawn from everything from music and literature to popular culture. Packaged is a small format and highly illustrated with a unique combination of historical and cultural images, "Bird Brainteasers" is the perfect gift for any bird lover. Put down the binoculars and pick up a pencil!
Author: Tim Birkhead Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0802779689 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 302
Book Description
What is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? And what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, and how does its brain improvise? Bird Sense addresses questions like these and many more, by describing the senses of birds that enable them to interpret their environment and to interact with each other. Our affinity for birds is often said to be the result of shared senses--vision and hearing--but how exactly do their senses compare with our own? And what about a bird's sense of taste, or smell, or touch, or the ability to detect the earth's magnetic field? Or the extraordinary ability of desert birds to detect rain hundreds of kilometres away--how do they do it? Bird Sense is based on a conviction that we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird's head. Our understanding of bird behaviour is simultaneously informed and constrained by the way we watch and study them. By drawing attention to the way these frameworks both facilitate and inhibit discovery, Birkhead identifies ways we can escape from them to explore new horizons in bird behaviour. There has never been a popular book about the senses of birds. No one has previously looked at how birds interpret the world or the way the behaviour of birds is shaped by all their senses. A lifetime spent studying birds has provided Tim Birkhead with a wealth of observation and a unique understanding of birds and their behaviour that is firmly grounded in science.
Author: Nathan Emery
Author: Nathan Emery
Author: Candace Savage
Author: Chuck Mullin
Author: Guy Kennaway
Author: Harris Philip Zeigler
Author: Johanna Sinisalo
Author: Jennifer Ackerman
Author: Jennifer Ackerman
Author: Patrick Merrell
Author: Tim Birkhead