Jennifer Ackerman writes about the intelligence of birds, who had previously been thought of as simply instinct-driven creatures with primitive brains. Her 2016 book explores this new view of birds as more intelligent than we have ever thought.

"In the past two decades or so, from fields and laboratories around the world have flowed examples of bird species capable of mental feats comparable to those found in primates. There’s a kind of bird that creates colorful designs out of berries, bits of glass, and blossoms to attract females, and another kind that hides up to thirty- three thousand seeds scattered over dozens of square miles and remembers where it put them months later. There’s a species that solves a classic puzzle at nearly the same pace as a five-year-old child, and one that’s an expert at picking locks. There are birds that can count and do simple math, make their own tools, move to the beat of music, comprehend basic principles of physics, remember the past, and plan for the future." --Excerpt from the Introduction page 1