num_pages: 368
description: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds a radical investigation into the bird way of being and the recent scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds.There is the mammal way and there is the bird way.' This is one scientist's pithy distinction between mammal brains and bird brains: two ways to make a highly intelligent mind. But lately scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviours they've previously dismissed as anomalies. What they're finding is upending the traditional view of how birds live how they communicate forage court survive. They're also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities abilities we once considered uniquely our own  deception manipulation kidnapping infanticide but also ingenious communication between species collaboration altruism and play.Some of these behaviours are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of  well  birdness: A mother bird that kills her own infant sons and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds. Young birds that devote themselves to feeding their siblings and others so competitive they'll stab their nestmates to death. Birds that give gifts and birds that steal birds that dance or drum that paint their creations or paint themselves and birds that summon playmates with a special call  and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter.Drawing on personal observations the latest science and her bird-related travel around the world Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect in plumage form song flight lifestyle niche and behaviour birds vary. It's what we love about them.
language: English
title: The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think
publisher: Penguin Press