Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans

Gifts of the Crow by John Marzluff and Tony Angell is a book proving that birds are a lot smarter than one may think. You may think that birds are just animals that live on this earth and strive for survival. Marzluff and Angell take the bird and prove to the readers that these magnificent animals are more than meets the eye and that with proper research and observation, a bird is actually an intelligent creature, just like us humans. Although this may seem bizarre and quite a bit farfetched, it is not since Marzluff is an expert on birds and their behavior through the years of study and research that he has conducted with birds. Along with his research, Marzluff has written and published many papers and books just like this one depicting the behavior of birds. Angell on the other hand, has less experience with research, but more experience in observing wildlife and transforming what he sees into works of art. Therefore, whether you think this book is accurate or completely false, I stand on the position that these authors are correct in the sense that birds do behave like humans mostly because the evidence is presented all throughout the book and how can you not believe something when evidence is presented in front of you? The main idea behind this book is basically Marzluff and Angell primarily focusing on the behavior of birds belonging to the avian family Corvidae including crows, ravens, jays, and nutcrackers. Throughout this book, the two authors do not try to persuade readers to agree with their writings and research, but instead attempt to portray to humans that these birds are more than meets the eye. The authors try to show how these birds are smarter and more intelligent than they appear to be. Throughout this book, we see concepts of neuroscience being presented. Betty is a crow and one of the birds that the two authors have been observing for some time. Betty shows cognitive abilities when the authors test her by putting bird food in a tiny bucket and they put this bucket in a glass cylinder. Next to the cylinder the authors put a twig. Betty is now placed by the experiment. She attempts to reach the food with only her break. She fails. Next she grabs the twig and tries to scoop the food out. She fails. Finally, she bends the tip of the twig to make hook and then she hooks the twig to the bucket and pulls the bucket out. What the authors observe here is that these birds have cognitive abilities as well as the ability of remembering actions. They call this the "knowledge of cause and effect". Betty knew that her beak would not reach the food so she looked for other means. She found the twig and used this. She knew she would not get it out with the straight twig so she bent the edge and made a hook. This is remarkable to observe since you can actually see the bird using its brain to think things through. Marzluff and Angell believe the bird was able to remember its actions and attain the goal which it strived to obtain because of their brains. Marzluff states that "the forebrain of a crow assesses sensory information, integrates this view of the environment with context and emotion to form memories, and sends electrical and chemical instructions to motor control regions to command action" (Marzluff and Angell 5). Another quite amazing example is the risk taking that crows take. Marzluff has been observing the risks that crows take as well. He gives one example of how crows have learned to simply duck if a car is approaching them rather than flying away. This gives crows an advantage to road kill since other animals will not go near road kill because they run the risk of getting killed themselves. That is not the case for crows. These birds will see a car coming, and due to what they know, they will simply duck and wait for the car to pass. This is hard to believe but Marzluff's studies and observations have proved the risk taking that crows encounter. Just one more example that stuck me while reading was a raven named Bela. Bela has been marked by Marzluff with a yellow ring on her claw to distinguish her from others. Marzluff has been going to the park and feeding her for quite some time now. Whenever he approaches, Bela swoops down from the tree and flies around him until he gives her the food. However one day Marzluff is walking with a group and Bela notices him, but instead of flying around him, this time Bela flies around, caws violently which this makes other crows start to fly around him and caw. What Marzluff believes happened here is that Bela used her recognition skills and remembered Marzluff, but did not recognize the others. She felt threatened and therefore retaliated in the way that she did. This just comes to show you how different these birds are and how smart and intelligent they can really be. There are a lot more stories just like these in the book that prove to the readers how smart these birds are. These stories have scientific evidence proving the true nature of these birds. When evidence is shown it is really hard to try and negate something and say it is untrue. Therefore, this book is a clear illustration of the intelligence of these birds.

Absolutely brilliant and educational! A great extent of research went into this book! I find the contents to be true based upon my own personal experiences and observations including documentation! I am about to publish two books: (1) THE CAWING (2) CROWS DON’T LIE

BIRKHEAD, Tim. Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird. Walker. 2012. 266 + xxii p, illus., bibliog., index. $25. MARZLUFF, John, and ANGELL, Tony. Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans. Free Press. 2012. 289 + xiv p., illus., bibliog., index. $25. HERZOG, Hal. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals. HarperCollins. 2010. 226 + viii p. $25.99. Good science writing is hard to beat. It's crisp, provides you with new insights into the physical world, and if the writer is good, opens up new worlds to you. Two of these three books -by Birkhead and Marzluff and Angell-- satisfy me on this level. The third -by Herzog-- does not. The two books on birds were part of a larger packet of books I bought from Amazon to satisfy my curiosity about these animals I can't ignore but know little about. I had read one book by Berndt Heinrich, a brilliant animal ethologist, on ravens so I bought three more (one on ravens, one -a classic--on bumblebees, and one autobiographical), which I have yet to read. These two books got caught up in the web of that buying spree. I[m just as interested in our attitudes toward animals -why are some okay to eat and others not? why do some repulse us and others not at all?--so I was looking for books on that topic too, and Herzog's popped up, along with a book by one of my favorite quirky historians, R. W. Bulliett, Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers (2005). This digression is simply to establish that I have a serious, though not scholarly, interest in the topics of animal capabilities and personalities and on how we perceive and relate to different kinds of animals. Birhkead's book on bird senses, and Marzluff's and Angell's on the capabilities and behavior of crows both satisfy me. The information is provides succinctly, the writing is crisp, both Birkhead and Marzluff (Angell is the illustrator) convey their passion about their subjects, and what they write about is fascinating. Both include a good deal of hard scientific information, not surprising given how much their field of studies has been enriched by the use of modern brain mapping techniques, but the hard stuff doesn't overwhelm the lay read (me). Rather, it gives what they write elsewhere credibility. The illustrations in both books are superb, and highly informative, a model of animal science illustrating. Birkhead especially is generous in detailing the contributions of past and other present day scientists in advancing knowledge in his field. Neither author claims too much for what is currently known. And if I haven't said it before, the prose in both of these books is admirably crisp. I bought the book by Hal Herzog because (1) I found the topic fascinating and (2) both Stephen Pinker and Irene Pepperberg, scientists whose books I have enjoyed, praised it. I'll be blunt. I didn't like the book. It's fuzzy where it should be hard, and it ends its stories just about the point I want to follow up on them. In short, although the book contains a great deal of interesting though I am not sure conclusive information on its subject, it's too anecdotal and much too cutesy for my taste. I'm sure a good book could be written on the subject of human tastes for animals but when it's written, it needs to be crisp in style, skeptical in analyzing, and much more compact than this rambling and sporadically entertaining account is.

I love birds and have watched and listened to crows where ever I have lived. This book may not be for everyone as it delves into brain circuitry and chemistry and can get right technical. It has enough anecdotal information to keep it entertaining, but - on the Kindle edition - 52% of the book consists of notes. The notes are very informative, but even more technical as they explain the science that is touched on throughout the book. I like non-fiction and this was a good, quick and informative read. My favorite crows are in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Sitting in deer stands one often hears a gang or murder of crows fire up the scolding behavior referenced in the book. Being in a forest I can't see them, but they really get cranking on something. After a while, one of the crows will move away from the group and start yelling by itself. This leads to what seems to be a call and response scolding followed after a few minutes of great yahooing with the separate crow flying away, sounding like he is laughing. As the gang yells at him, he laughs louder and harder and just moves on off until everything devolves into muttering. Fascinating birds, Corvids.

This guy is an interesting book. I learned a lot about bird brains. It is amazing that their brains work somewhat like ours. I enjoyed this book!

This is among the most complete of the many books about corvid intelligence written in the last couple of decades, but it is most innovative in its discussion of anecdotes. The majority of scientists have largely ignored these accounts, and a few have accepted them almost uncritically, but Gifts of the Crow by Marzluff and Angle goes farther than any other in systematically attempting to understand them. This book contains reports of crows that leave gifts to human benefactors, ring doorbells to obtain food, pass on hostilities to their children, call dogs by imitating human voices, hold funerals, zip open backpacks to get sandwiches, and so on.... Every one of the accounts might, taken in isolation, merit a skeptical response, but, taken together, they convincingly document the intellectual and emotional complexity of corvid behavior. A simplistic approach might be to conclude that crows are just like human beings, but what the authors of this book do is far more helpful. They sort through dozens of anecdotes looking for patterns, as sort of approach traditionally identified more with the so-called "humanities" than with the sciences. The biggest lesson here is that one no longer needs to leave animals, in this case corvids, to the zoologists. The behavior of crows, and probably other animals, is sufficiently variable that it is possible for the interested layperson to develop unique relationships with them, and to make, or at least contribute to, new discoveries. Full disclosure: I am a friend of the authors, and many crows as well.

Lots of scientific information no interesting information for fun readi g

We have crows. Uninvited crows who have now become a welcomed neighbor. They make a lot of noise but after reading this book, we feel privileged to have intelligent, animated and entertaining squatters. This book covers the scientific aspects as well as the everyday habits that make crows so interesting. They mate for life. They recognize human faces. They are known to leave gifts. This is the perfect gift for anyone who has an interest in birds, especially crows.

Un libro di elevato interesse frutto di uno studio di anni fatto dall'autore. Particolarmente dettagliate e approfondite le analisi di come ogni singola azione dei corvidi, apparentemente più tipica degli esseri umani che degli uccelli, sia riconducibile ad uno specifico processo mentale. Il libro comunque non è ostico ma accessibilissimo e affascinante, corredato da disegni molto ben fatti e raccontato con ammirazione e affetto per questi incredibili uccelli. Le esperienze vissute dall'autore e da tante altre persone, insieme alla solida base scientifica, lasciano alla fine soddisfatti perché il libro consente di imparare cose sorprendenti e inimmaginabili fino a qualche tempo fa, che non lasciano dubbi sulla grandezza della Natura per la quale incutono uno sconfinato rispetto.

Ich interessiere mich sehr für Rabenvögel und habe bereits viel zum Thema gelesen. Das vorliegende Werk sticht dadurch hervor, dass es zum einen umfassende Untersuchungen zu allen Aspekten aus dem Leben von Rabenvögeln beschreibt - und zwar sowohl wissenschaftliche Experimente als auch Beobachtungen aus aller Welt. Letztere sind in ihrer Vielfältigkeit und den oftmals faszinierenden Details besonders spannend (und oftmals auch lustig)! Zum anderen werden sehr umfangreich die neuesten Erkenntnisse zu den kognitiven Fähigkeiten von Rabenvögeln bzw. die zugrundeliegenden anatomischen Grundlagen (v. a. Aufbau der Gehirne) erläutert.

Good reading. Just as human is exceptionally intelligent among mammals, crows are equivalently intelligent among birds. Amazing is this great descendants of dino’s!

Love this book. As a huge lover of Crows & Ravens it is a good read and understanding of their true nature

CROWS!!! They are like a lot of my very quirky friends... loyal, seem opinionated (Crows either like you or not or just ignore you).. Very funny at times, noisy, and this book has given me a lot more to enjoy these black feathered fliers. The author spares no details, and lets the reader in on the inside track for how the information was and is obtained. Fortunately no deaths during the process which I appreciate. I've always admired these black beauties, and even more so as I continue my excursion through this book.. which is the second book i've gotten on these plentiful, but still mysteriously smart and intelligent beauties. thanks