Interesting just found the delivery a bit dry at times

For birders and nature lovers, this is a must read book. Ackerman explores the traits of birds and how birds demonstrate intelligence. From tool use among New Caledonian Crows to the adaptability of the house sparrow, she gives example after example. Impeccably researched with copious footnotes, this is a wonderful book to read. Scientific enough that it holds the interest of the experienced birder without becoming a dry ornithology text book. But even if you're not a birder, this is just a good, interesting non-fiction science read. Highly recommended.

Fascinating and full of facts, this book will forever change the way you look at birds!

I enjoyed this book and learned a great deal about the impressive brains of birds. I wish that there had been a bit more about the implications of these observations and things we could learn from our feathered friends. Some of the book was dry without these connections.

Were the producers for the audiobook on drugs? What a terrible mismatch of narrator and book. It feels like the producers were playing a sick joke on the narrator and me for 11 hours of recording.

* Margaret Strom's chipper sing-song delivery is really inappropriate for the tone. It's fine for the crochet murder-mystery Hooked On Murder where I'd want that friendlier, story-time attitude, but bizarre and grating for a pop science book.

* She takes a certainly unorthodox approach to pronouncing words. I can't t throw too many stones because I pronounce washing machine as 'warshing machine,' but it feels like I'm getting pranked. Sensory=Sen-sore-ee, or, much worse, the different ways she trips over Ornithologists.

* Golly it's so slow and herky jerky. With huge pauses like she's working a DMV line between recording, or she's reading to an elementary school class. I rarely like to increase playback speed, but I wasn't willing to give 11 hours of my life to it.

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I mention all of this to say I may be biased against the content. But make no mistake...I didn't like the book itself either.

There's a series of anecdotes about the birds, but so little connecting glue. She seems to be throwing stories about pigeons being able to find their way home, or to food, or mockingbirds singing songs and making babies, while yelling, "Aren't birds cool??" And yeah, Jen, they are cool. But it's so circuitous that there doesn't seem to be much more. She goes on a long, long introduction about the bias against birds and 'birdbrains,' but I don't think does an adequate job presenting a cohesive counter thesis.

Also, and maybe this is just me, but she seems to take the piss out of other animals while she's at it. She says birds are smarter than they appear and intelligence manifests in many non-obvious ways, but then takes potshots at cows and bizarrely dogs. That doesn't sit right with me, when she should be taking the opportunity to say we should re-evaluate how we view intelligence in all animals.

It's messy, and not that much more informative than a wikipedia page.

I knew nothing about birds going in, so I found this book super interesting! Definitely worth a read if you like books about animals.

Started this once before and couldn't get into it, but I was in a better reading mood this time. So much good bird info! Some of it I already knew from various nature documentaries, but there was a lot of new info as well. I didn't realize how much of the book was devoted to citing the author's sources, but I appreciate that resource is there for those who want to look into anything further.

I’m glad I picked this book to began my journey into ornithology. It was an interesting read packed with lots of knowledge and information. After reading this book I am now even more curious about ornithology than I was before.