The science here is hard, compelling and presented in Ackerman’s engaging and jargon-free prose, and on every page there is evidence to support the book’s thesis: that to speak of birds en masse is to make a category error, one that blinds us to the extraordinary variance in behaviour, appearance and even biology in these creatures we attempt to trap under the same ontological net. Despite there being only four years between The Bird Way and its predecessor, it feels like a revolution has taken place in our understanding of birds in that time. The recent vogue for books about birds – started by Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk and continued by Birkhead as well as in memorable titles by Adam Nicolson, Tim Dee and Ackerman herself – seems to have been mirrored by an avian turn in scientific research. This book is a celebration of the dizzying variety of bird life and behaviour, one that will enthral birders and non-birders alike. Now Ackerman, one of the most acclaimed science writers in the US, is back with another book about birds, one that delves deeper into the wonders and peculiarities of the avian world, seeking to explode the conventional idea that, as the opening of the book puts it, “there is the bird way, and there is the mammal way”. J ennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds was a surprise bestseller – a peppy survey of the science of bird intelligence rivalled only by Tim Birkhead’s masterful Bird Sense in its ability to overthrow our misconceptions about the complexity and ingenuity of bird brains.

The genius of birds book