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The Genius of Birds cover art

The Genius of Birds

By: Jennifer Ackerman
Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
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Summary

In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about.

Consider, as Ackerman does, the Clark's nutcracker, a bird that can hide as many as 30,000 seeds over dozens of square miles and remember where it put them several months later; the mockingbirds and thrashers, species that can store 200 to 2,000 different songs in a brain a thousand times smaller than ours; the well-known pigeon, which knows where it's going, even thousands of miles from familiar territory; and the New Caledonian crow, an impressive bird that makes its own tools.

This elegant scientific investigation and travelogue weaves personal anecdotes with fascinating science.

©2016 Jennifer Ackerman (P)2016 Isis Publishing Ltd

What listeners say about The Genius of Birds

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An interesting listen

I can't fault the content of this book, it's a very interesting listen with plenty of balanced discussions about a wide variety of birds and their cognitive abilities.

The one thing I struggled with was the length of each chapter; they could easily have been split into smaller chapters with overarching themes. It often feels like although sections of a chapter are related, it would be much easier to digest in smaller chunks.

For example, halfway through I decided to start listening to the book at 1.5x speed and the longest chapter still took an hour and a half! If you struggle to focus for long periods of time then perhaps this isn't the book for you.

On the other hand, if you're looking to expand your knowledge of our feathered friends then this book will scratch that itch, with loads of great information on all sorts of topics relating to intelligence in birds from an author who clearly has a passion for them.

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  • 25-10-19

Really hard to listen to her voice

It’s utterly fascinating but I have found her voice very hard to listen to, which has ruined the whole experience

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1 person found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting

Interesting topic although sometimes very scientific and every male voice the narrator does doings like they are from Yorkshire Dales

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Fair

This book contains some interesting information but it falls short due to a) it not being categorised or organised - it's felt like one long shapeless narrative & b) most of the information comes from vivisection/animal experiments most of which are pretty unethical

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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Difficult to concentrate

The reader has a voice pace and performance that made it very difficult for me.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

An interesting read, hard work at times

A great book full of amazing information, slightly lacking flow at times. The book is ordered by measures of intellect and as such, felt disjointed as it jumps from one species to another, one continent to another and one example to another.

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