The Genius of Birds - Jennifer Ackerman

Birds are so diverse and surprising that any book about them, especially one written by a scientist as deeply engaged with her subject as Ackerman, offers a host of new facts; here you’ll learn that turkeys are closer to dinosaurs than any other birds; that birds really do sleep with one eye open, and they also experience periods of REM sleep; that mockingbirds can imitate 200-plus songs, including ringing phones and truck back-up beeps. But Ackerman’s study focuses specifically on intelligence; she surveys  bird behavior world-wide, citing investigations of birds’ brain size and structure, their sensitivity to geomagnetism, their social networks, and much more.