Highly Recommend

This is the third of Jennifer Ackerman’s books that I have read, and while I will argue that it basically is a sequel to The Genius of Birds, I think it was also an improvement.  It is called The Bird Way, but much of the book focused on understanding bird intelligence:  How it is on display, where it comes from, and how it is used.  However, Ackerman’s attempt to focus more on the birds’ way of life lent to a more in-depth understanding of different example species.  Perhaps I simply do not remember The Genius of Birds as well as I would like, but I feel that that book flitted from species to species more often and rapidly than this one did.

Another reason that this book was more of a sequel to The Genius of Birds is that the author was careful not to repeat herself, using new birds and new behaviors to write about.  Thus, if it was merely about the bird way of life, there would be more natural overlap, especially with the author’s own expertise, however she wisely stuck with new aspects of bird life and new species.  There are some brief mentions of previously covered birds, but no real coverage, though having read the Genius of Birds, I understood these references better.  Thus, I think this book was a sequel, but also superior.

One problem the book had was that Jennifer Ackerman does occasionally try too hard to play up bird intelligence.  Bird intelligence is impressive and needs no help.  However in the discussion on bird language, she liked to state that birds who understood alarm calls from another species knew another language.  Birds understanding another species’ calls, not simply repeating them, is impressive.  And those who repeat them for material gain are even more impressive.  But a new language it is not.  Besides, we can understand bird alarm calls and our ears can’t even pick out much of the details, but we don’t understand bird language.

Another issue with the book is its scope.  One cannot cover all birds, but the author does seem to give it a go as she did in The Genius of Birds.  I learned a lot of specifics, very interesting specifics that help me understand bird and animal evolution and a lot about ecology.  Unfortunately for myself, learning about birds in Australia, New Zealand, and South America did less for me than learning about birds in North America.  Of course, this is one of Ackerman’s main points, that ornithology has had an understandable northern hemisphere bias, so to correct that, she focuses elsewhere.

So read this book if you want to learn a lot about bird behavior, bird evolution, and bird intelligence.  Do not read it if you want to learn about birds in North America or Europe, but if you do, you will still enjoy it.