Mind of the Raven
Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds
by Bernd Heinrich · first published 1999
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Field-based, personal account of raven behavior and cognition from a naturalist who ran experiments on wild ravens; recommended for readers interested in bird intelligence and animal minds, written accessibly.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
In Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich, award - winning naturalist, finds himself dreaming of ravens and decides he must get to the truth about this animal reputed to be so intelligent.Much like a sleuth, Heinrich involves us in his quest, letting one clue lead to the next. But as animals can only be spied on by getting quite close Heinrich adopts ravens, thereby becoming a "raven father," as well as observing them in their natural habitat, studying their daily routines, and in the process painting a vivid picture of the world as lived by the ravens. At the heart of this book are Heinrich's love
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…kind of moral hallucination. But it's changed the way I've seen ravens since. I attribute self awareness to them. When they caw what I hear is laughing ... at a ground bound inferior like me. Reading _Mind_of_the_Raven_ only reinforced this feeling. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254704.Mind_of_the_Raven
on “How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)” ↗…documentary, Nova's Inside Animal Mind: Birds... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-spBaywak7M An even better read, IMO, but I am partial to the Corvus corax... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254704.Mind_of_the_Raven
on “Crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-olds on cause-and-effect tasks” ↗While this thread is about crows, I can't recommend Bernd Heinrich's books, many of which feature his relationship with ravens, highly enough. A Year in the Maine Woods [1] is a classic. Mind of the Raven [2] and Ravens in Winter [3] may be of interest to anyone following this thread and since I am speaking about ravens in a thread about crows, an Audubon article "How to Tell a Raven from a Crow" [4] may…
on “How to Befriend Crows” ↗May I suggest the book "Mind of the Raven" by Bernd Heinrich. Excellently written and extremely interesting. He has spent a life time studying animal behavior in particular Corvidae. "Bernd Heinrich is a biologist and author of numerous books…
on “The Magic of Bird Brains” ↗…consider analogous human behavior. But things like de Waal's work demonstrating moral sense in animals is hard to explain in any other way. [1] Even so, it can be tricky. In Bernd Heinrich's excellent "Mind of the Raven" [2], he points to a story where a woman, lost in the wilderness, noticed a raven crying near her and spotted something like a mountain lion creeping up on her. In the news story she gave the raven credit…
on “Crows "count" the number of self-generated vocalizations” ↗…illustrating cool tree things: https://greystonebooks.com/products/the-hidden-life-of-trees...! If you like scientific nonfiction in this vein, I'd also recommend: - The Wild Trees - Mycelium Running - Mind of the Raven - The Klamath Knot Or if you want tree fiction: - The Overstory (edit: dunno how to do bullet lists here)
on “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate (2018)” ↗…Heinrich is a naturalist and professor who has written plenty of uniquely insightful and highly accessible books on the intelligence of birds, among other species. One of his authoritative books is the "Mind of the raven", which analyzes the question of consciousness in ravens. From the description on Amazon: "Mind of the Raven follows an exotic journey;from New England to Germany, and from Montana to Baffin Island in…
on “Newfound brain structure explains why some birds are so smart” ↗Yes, 100% agreed. In the human linage, deception long predates language, so it makes a lot of sense that birds get up to the same thing. If you're interested in bird cognition, I strongly recommend Mind of the Raven. It's a very personal book by someone who did field experiments with ravens and richly conveys the challenges of understanding what they're up to. I read it because I became pals with a raven whose territory…
on “Text Is All You Need” ↗I have a book by Bernd Heinrich, Mind of the Raven (1999), subtitled "Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-birds". He did research with ravens for years. I tried to find where he mentioned the behavior. One thing he noted throughout his research was…
on “Ravens Play with Wolves” ↗Ravens are strictly smarter. Bengt Heinrich, writing in "Mind of the Raven", found their limit by tying bits of meat to strings hanging where they could reach the string. Some, not all, would grab the string with their beak and tuck it under one foot, and keep drawing it up…
on “Crows found to be smarter than we think” ↗…example, ravens easily understand stuff hanging on the end of a string, and pulling the string up in stages to get it. But they cannot understand pulling a string on a pulley down to bring the titbit up. ("Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds" by Bernd Heinrich)
on “Scientists re-evaluating relative brain size and mammalian intelligence” ↗