Bird Brain - by Andreas Nieder (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A myth-busting exploration of corvid intelligence from one of the world's foremost authorities, revealing a new understanding of both the animal and human mind

What if one of the most intelligent minds on Earth could fly?

Crows and ravens can solve multi-step puzzles, use and shape tools, remember human faces for years, and plan ahead. In this groundbreaking new book, neuroscientist Andreas Nieder reveals how these birds think, and why their intelligence is reshaping what science believes about the mind.

At the center of Bird Brain is Edgar, a crow raised in Nieder's lab at the University of Tübingen. As Edgar grows from chick to adult, his abilities--learning, counting, decision-making--offer a rare, inside look at the cognitive world of corvids.

Crows don't have a human-like brain. So how does Edgar do it? Nieder's research shows that a different brain structure, the pallium, can produce surprisingly advanced forms of thought, challenging long-held ideas about intelligence and consciousness.

Smart, surprising, and deeply thought-provoking, Bird Brain will alter how you see all animals--and how you understand us.

Review Quotes

"Bird Brain is a revelation, an outstanding work of popular science authored by a leading scientist who can flat-out write. It is the memoir of a crow named Edgar, written by the researcher who raised, nurtured, and studied him: Andreas Nieder, one of the world's foremost neuroscientists. In personal and touching prose, Nieder recounts what Edgar taught him: that crows can do things that were once thought to be limited to humans and our closest mammal kin."
--Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Story of Birds

"A wild romp into the curious, complex, and sometimes contentious realm of crow intelligence. Andreas Nieder's star pupil, Edgar, leads the way using his small but supercharged brain to demonstrate how smart birds use working and long-term memory, voluntary attention, cognitive flexibility, and a sense of numbers and time to thrive in a changing world. As a leader in the field, Dr. Nieder reveals the clever experiments that have pushed aside the stigma of 'bird brain' and confronted slippery topics such as animal play and consciousness with a clear and easily readable style that all can learn from and enjoy."
--John M. Marzluff, coauthor of Gifts of the Crow and In the Company of Crows and Ravens

"An outstanding book: the miniature brain of crows houses a highly sophisticated set of neural circuits that, in several domains, closely parallels the primate brain. Crows can reason, decide, craft simple tools, remember the past, or understand numbers--including zero. A first-hand account of a foreign intelligence, by the neuroscientist who first opened the crow brain for exploration."
--Stanislas Dehaene, author of Consciousness and the Brain

"Edgar, the star of Bird Brain, changed my mind about what birds can know."
--Joan Strassmann, author of Slow Birding

About the Author

Andreas Nieder is a biologist and Professor of Animal Physiology and Director of the Institute of Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen. With more than 15 years of dedicated work studying crows, Nieder is the preeminent authority in the field of corvid cognition, and is a world-renowned expert in animal cognition. His research on crow consciousness was published as a Science cover feature in 2020. Nieder has appeared on the likes of NPR and BBC Radio 4 to discuss the incredible world of crows, and his research has been highlighted in leading science outlets including New Scientist and Quanta.