Tony AngellReseñas

I really enjoyed this book, which has both good scientific information from crow studies and fun anecdotes. The studies and anecdotes provided evidence of the wisdom of crows and their kin. It’s unfortunate that the author was so uncomfortable relaying the anecdotes. It forced him to repeatedly state hypotheses and then go through the likely physical processes that led to whatever behavior he was describing. As many of the same hormones and pathways were involved, it bacme somewhat repetitive. The author did a separate appendix with diagrams and further information.
All in all, a really good read

Both a personal account of the author's experiences with North American owls, and a nice synopsis of their habits and life histories. Accompanied by many of Angell's own illustrations of different owls.

Crows and other corvids are the smartest of all birds. This book is well written but has a lot of details about neurobiology that would be only of interest to some.

A wonderful book about some wonderful creatures. Lots of pretty drawings. Great stories about crow behavior and its similarities with our own behavior. I skipped over some of the nitty gritty specifics on corvid brain structures.

An absolute must-read for anyone who enjoys birds. Marzluff does a great job of telling very entertaining stories of corvid behavior while also explaining the anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry behind the behavior. I've always loved crows and known they were smart, but some of the behavior detailed in this book blew me away. I need a crow friend. Immediately.

This is pretty dry neurobiology. Very educational, very scientific yet geared for the layperson, but a little too dense for an audiobook.

This book tells some pretty amazing things about our feathered friends. It is very technical, and I got bogged down in some of it, even skipping sections, but it was very fascinating. For the life they live, corvids are very intelligent - enough to challenge some of our acuity!

This was rather disappointing. A fair number of anecdotes, none of them surprising if you've read news articles about crows. Very little description of the science of studying crow intelligence. Bernd Heinrich's "Mind of the Raven" is vastly superior, being basically a series of experiments (although often inconclusive ones). This has only a couple descriptions of experiments, and they were mostly not particularly novel or interesting. For example, they describe showing crows different images, then anesthetizing them and putting them through a PET scanner. Then they over-interpret the results. Basically, it goes from "we have no idea how crows do this, but it must be somewhere in their brain" to "we have no idea how crows do this, but it might be related to these [large and vaguely defined] areas of the brain." So what? The book is also overwritten, and I personally would have preferred photographs to the sketches.

One interesting experiment they do is to capture ravens while wearing a mask, and then for the next five years continue to wear the mask, or give it to undergrads to wear, around campus. The ravens passed the identity of the "bad guy" down and kept harassing him, in fact in larger and larger groups, and even when the mask was worn upside-down.

> Not only was the crows' hatred of the caveman persistent, it was getting worse with time. In the five years since we trapped on campus, the number of birds scolding the caveman on a typical walk has increased threefold. And the vast majority of those who berate the Neanderthal were never even touched by him

Very sciency and then very narrative at points. Good mix for me.

Oddly enough I'm in the perfect position to "eat crow" as the saying goes. I saw a number of reviews that suggested this book was uneven, that there was too much science, as one person put it, and I smugly laughed it off. I read a lot of science and I'm rarely put off by complexities.

Yeah this time? Not so much. The critics were spot on and I'm sorry I doubted them. The book is uneven with hunks of information about the neurobiology of crows and other corvids, none of which seems to be particularly well integrated into the narrative. It was so scattered that I only got through four chapters before I bailed.

The thing is that the folks who said this wasn't good scientific writing were spot on. It's by turns inaccessible and lightly anecdotal, but solid behavioral information that might have tied those two opposite modes of inquiry together seemed to be lacking.

I was wrong to dismiss the naysayers, and I admit it.

Apropos of the audiobook quality, it's good as is the narrator. It's the material that's rather dull and disappointing.

Oddly enough I'm in the perfect position to "eat crow" as the saying goes. I saw a number of reviews that suggested this book was uneven, that there was too much science, as one person put it, and I smugly laughed it off. I read a lot of science and I'm rarely put off by complexities.

Yeah this time? Not so much. The critics were spot on and I'm sorry I doubted them. The book is uneven with hunks of information about the neurobiology of crows and other corvids, none of which seems to be particularly well integrated into the narrative. It was so scattered that I only got through four chapters before I bailed.

The thing is that the folks who said this wasn't good scientific writing were spot on. It's by turns inaccessible and lightly anecdotal, but solid behavioral information that might have tied those two opposite modes of inquiry together seemed to be lacking.

I was wrong to dismiss the naysayers, and I admit it.

Apropos of the audiobook quality, it's good as is the narrator. It's the material that's rather dull and disappointing.

I have always noticed crows doing interesting things so this book is right down my alley. Super fun learning more about their zany ways. I admit I skimmed over the brain diagrams but now carry peanuts in my car to toss as snacks. They eat them but seem to prefer french fries.

A fascinating and frequently entertaining look at the astonishing intelligence and emotional range of crows and other corvids. A good mix of hard science and anecdotes.

(Illustrations: 4.5 / 5.0,
writing: 3.0 / 5.0 = 2.5 /5.0,
= 3.75 / 5.0, rounded up)

(Illustrations: 4.5 / 5.0,
writing: 3.0 / 5.0 = 2.5 /5.0,
= 3.75 / 5.0, rounded up)