Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds

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Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds

4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 · rating details · 934 ratings · 140 reviews

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...more 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 and respect for these complex and engaging creatures, and through his keen observation andanalysis, we become their intimates too.

Throughout history there has existed an extraordinary relationship between humans and ravens. Ravens, like early humans, are scavengers on the kills of great carnivores. As scavengers, ravens were associated with hunters they found in the north: wolves and, later, men. The trinity of wolf, man, and raven in the hunt is an extremely ancient one. In considering the appeal of the raven, Bernd Heinrich suspects that a meeting of the minds might reside in that hunting trinity.

Heinrich's passion for ravens has led him around the world in his research. "Mind of the Raven" takes you on an exotic journey--from New England to Germany, Montana to Baffin Island in the high Arctic--offering dazzling accounts of how science works in the field, filtered through the eyes of a passionate observer of nature.

Heinrich has a true gift; through his stories, his beautiful writing, illustrations, and photography, the ravens come alive. Each new discovery and insight intotheir behavior is thrilling to read. just as the title promises, the reader is given a rare glimpse into the mind of these wonderful creatures.Following the dictum of Leonardo da Vinci--"It is not enough to believe what you see. YOU Must also understand what you see"--Bernd Heinrich enables us to see the natural world through the eyes of a scientist. At once lyrical and scientific, "Mind of the Raven" is bound to be a modern classic.(less)

Paperback, 380 pages

Published April 28th 2000 by Ecco Press (first published 1994)

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Sep 17, 2011 Petra X rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: animals-ethology

Rewritten 18 Sept 2011

Fascinating things you learn in books that may save your life one day if you are stuck in the woods (or not).

Now I know how to climb a tree so tall that the branches don't even begin until 60-80 feet up.

1. Attach a fine monofilament line, anchored to the ground, to an arrow which you fire over the crown of the tree.

2. When the arrow is fired, standing in the original place, attach a much thicker line to the line you had fixed to the ground.

3. Go to where the arrow is now,...more

14 likes · like · see review

Feb 19, 2013 Trilby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: class-by-itself, animal-behavior, nonfiction

I got this book after spending a couple of summers on our land (now with cabin) in the North Woods. The ravens are omnipresent there, winter and summer. As I watched them wheel through the sky and heard their haunting cries, my curiosity about them was piqued.
This book far exceeded my expectations. Heinrich, a biologist by profession, presents insights into ravens' behavior garnered from his decade-long study of the wolf-birds. It was amazing the lengtbs that Heinrich would go to get a close g...more

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Jun 23, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bernd Heinrich is a naturalist, scientist, and writer with lyrical flair extraordinaire. In this book, he sets out to explore the life of the raven and raven society. With a series of engenious experiments, hours of observation, treks through the woods of northern Maine, using captured raven chicks raised to adult hood, and the ravens in the wild, Heinrich develops a profound insight into the world of the raven. He studies raven language, social heirarchy, methods and purposes of communication....more

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Aug 18, 2009 Colleen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Heinrich was told by his major professor at UC Davis never to study some animal smarter that you are. Well, he did. Only by writing this book which is a series of anecdotes can you appreciate the breadth and depth of their intelligence. He stole young ravens from the nest and raised them in his aviary out in the woods of Maine by his cabin. He gave them new things to explore and tried to fool them in various ways, but they usually figured out whatever he was doing. The tales he tells are just sp...more

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Jun 02, 2009 Keegan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich

A great scientific study of Ravens. The observations gave me a clear picture of the animal that played a crucial role in human history, inspired trickster myths, and stirred our collective imagination. I read this book along with Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes this World, and they are excellent companions. Hyde's book is an excellent exploration of trickster mythology, but he does not credit the animals spirits themselves for enough inspiration and interplay th...more Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich

A great scientific study of Ravens. The observations gave me a clear picture of the animal that played a crucial role in human history, inspired trickster myths, and stirred our collective imagination. I read this book along with Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes this World, and they are excellent companions. Hyde's book is an excellent exploration of trickster mythology, but he does not credit the animals spirits themselves for enough inspiration and interplay that they gave to our ancestors and still give to us. He seems to think that our ancestors imposed allegories of our imagination onto random animal figures, but I disagree, as I discuss later, and Bernd's work supports my ideas.
Among my favorite observations of his are that no two Raven's are alike. They are both a creative species, and creative individuals, who differ from each other as much as they differ from other species. Very little of their learning appears to be pre-programed, they problem solve and imagine solutions for themselves as they grow.
One of their most intelligent adaptations has been to learn to lead carnivores like wolves and men to hunting grounds so that they can scavenge remains, and also to lead these same carnivores, once they trust the birds' signals, into traps so they can eat the carnivore. In this way they escape from the predator-prey dichotomy, are an agent of neither side, but remain in a constant, undefined flux. I believe that our ancestors observed this, which inspired their trickster myths, and those that learned the deepest lessons of these myths, kept their societies in flux, so as not to create any strict laws, for eventually a situation will arise where exceptions need to be made to even the laws that sound most basic, otherwise tragedy will ensue. Think “thou shall not kill” and abortion, the death penalty, doctor assisted suicide. The individual and culture that does not keep a nimble enough mind to deal with all of these situations as they arise will crumble, govern with a cold, iron hand, or worse...

Some thoughts inspired by some of the observations:
132: Sharks are not fast enough to catch dolphins, so they don't try. Dogs are not fast enough to catch squirrels so they try and fail. Raven are not fast enough to catch squirrels, so they change the rules. They anticipate where one will run if chased. One Raven waits there while another gives chase, knowing he cannot catch the squirrel but also knowing that the other Raven will catch it and share it.
Hawks can catch squirrels and Ravens can watch. A Raven cannot kill a hawk, but they can try hard enough to distract the hawk while another Raven, hiding and waiting, steals the squirrel.

145: We respect the Raven spirit when we are Ravenous. He leads us to meat, teaches us the tricks to hunt for ourselves. When we become too settled, we frame him differently, we see his mischievousness as a threat to our order. Our mind-forged manacles make us short-sighted.
While reading this book and Trickster Makes this World, refining my ideas about the trickster spirit, I had a deep personal dilemma as my ideas (or idealizations) conflicted with the concerns of my daily life. My neighbors were burglarized, and this stressed me out far more than it needed to. I was not robbed, but I stayed awake at night, listening for the tiniest noises, and researched tenants' rights during the day. This was largely because our building is not secure (the front door is not self-closing or self-locking) and our super was suspected of committing the burglary. The incident vilified a trait I admire and strive to emulate. Raven would not work hard, stockpiling his goods and believing they could never be taken from him. Beaver would, and Raven would steal from him, proving him wrong. Man thought everything was perfectly arranged, living in a tightly shut clamshell, until Raven smashed that clam, killing those who clung to the shell, but exposing the survivors to the greater world.
Of course, whoever burgled my neighbors' apartment does not live outside the system. By robbing them, the entered the criminal justice system, the policed predator-prey relationship. Thieves are not present day tricksters. They never were, with the possible exception of Robin Hoods. Still, there is something to be learned from this: it is foolish to feel too secure in ones system of order. In our culture of multiculturalism, thousands of them collide at every crossroads (in this case, the domestic (me), the criminal (my super), the capitalist (my landlord), the state (the police), under a huge umbrella of a huge fucked up system that disenfranchised the Puerto Rican that probably robbed my two white neighbors). Raven is the God of the Crossroads. Here, all interesting revelations can emerge. Questions of whose things were stolen – who has rights to a computer while others don't anyway? - arise.
My neighbors can afford new things and if my super stole them, it is because he has HIV, two pregnant teenage daughters, and an addiction. Raven would see there are larger problems to be dealt with than theft. Dealing with them requires much more imagination than buying another lock – but no one will be truly safe until we do.

Bernd's observations in the last few chapters are profound. After painstakingly documenting Raven behavior and intelligence through most of the book (which was nearly as painstaking to read) he pulls his observations together and reflects deeply on evolution, consciousness, and intelligence. His best point about animal intelligence, is that it is silly to assume animals have an entirely other sort of consciousness than ourselves because the vast majority of our intelligence developed along with/through them.
One of his last points is that Raven, dolphin, and ape consciousness is most like our own because of their ability to predict situations – to “create memories,” as he puts it. For some reason, the most obvious, important word to describe their behavior eludes him: imagination.
Ravens can accurately imagine how other animals and objects will react to their actions without pre-programming or trial-and-error. There are obvious reasons that accurate imagination would be beneficial in the evolution of Ravens – for example, they need to be able to feed among carnivors, so they must be able to imagine how certain predators such as wolves and humans will react to their presence, both as a species and individuals.
Play has an obvious role in the development of the imagination. Bernd makes the interesting observation that 'play' is defined as activity that has no material benefits, but upon closer investigation it has vast benefits. Play often develops muscles, reactions, and reasoning that will ultimately benefit species and individuals materially. It makes individuals and species happier and more well-adjusted: 2 crucial elements to future success. And perhaps most importantly, it stimulates and sharpens the imagination.
Both species and individuals that have accurate, active imaginations are more successful and have more to teach us, which ties into Lewis Hyde's discussion of the trickster. Hyde notes the individuals with the trickster spirit who expand our consciousness, but I think he misses the 'species' side of things. He glosses over the animistic trickster and anthropomorphizes them to say they are merely representations of human attributes like Hermes. But they are more. Like all good metaphors, they are first and foremost their physical reality. The cold, we snow that falls all over Dublin at the end of The Dead may represent death or paralysis or whatever, but it is first and foremost cold, wet snow. Joyce's clear image, crafted from his playful penmanship, can mean so much more than its material reality because of Joyce's accurate, active imagination (even if he claimed never to have one).
Raven is first and foremost a big black bird with an active, accurate imagination. Our ancestors saw the genius of his imagination. He became the hero of their stories because they saw his wisdom, and by watching him closely they learned much about their own trickster spirits and the world itself. They did not simply impose their trickster imagination on a random animal. I wish Hyde would have made this concession, but if you read Bernd's book along with it, the point will become clear.(less)

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Jun 29, 2009 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ravens and crows have a reputation for being smart. In this beautiful book, Heinrich asks if ravens act by carrying out a series of innate, programmed behaviors, or if they're capable of thinking, planning ahead, and emotion.

I picked this book up after seeing a particularly social raven taunt some tourists on Vancouver island. What a weird bird.

Each chapter is laid out as an experiment. Can ravens recognized individual humans? Heinrich approaches the ravens in his aviary in a Halloween mask, i...more

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Oct 18, 2008 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I did enjoy this book, mostly for Heinrich's descriptions of specific ravens that he got to know as individuals, though after a point the stories and experiments felt repetitive and unmotivated. By the time the author reached the crux of the book, in which he describes an experiment that 'proves' ravens can act with intelligence, it felt like a bit of an anti-climax.

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Jun 26, 2011 Sherry (sethurner) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, animal-story

As a child I gravitated to nature books like The Last Auk, or One Day at Teton Marsh. Maybe growing up on a farm and having both wild and domestic pets fed my interest in birds and animals. Mind of the Raven is that sort of book, a well written, interesting look as some of the creatures in the natural world. It's hard not to be interested in Bernd Heinrich's anecdotes about his long time study of ravens, although there was more scientific detail in some chapters than I needed or wanted. So, I ju...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Rosalynde rated it 5 of 5 stars

My favorite naturalist!!! I've previously read _Summer World_ and _Winter World_--fantastic studies of animals' seasonal patterns and adaptations . . . Heinrich is richly curious and his writing is very accessible while being very thorough. Heinrich documents his observations of wild birds, but also documents raven behavior as he observed it using wild-caught chicks raised in his aviary. He is inventive and tireless in the objects he introduces them to to elicit reaction. He addresses the symbio...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Jim rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was recommended to me by someone who, I believe, did not understand me when I told him I talked to wild animals. I found the book tedious, and not terribly interesting. Maybe that is due to the fact that ravens have never interested me that much.

Mr. Heinrich, on the other hand, is very interested in ravens. But he does not write about them strictly in a scientific manner. The book seems to me to be a mixture of scientific study, coupled with anecdotes about the behavior of these birds...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Joy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I don't think I've ever read a more fleshed out and wonderful non-fiction book. I've read quite a few non-fiction books, but none that changed my view of something as much as this changed my view of the common raven. The book itself was a textbook for my Animal Behaviour course (a psychology course) and I honestly don't think the professor could've picked a better, more fitting book. It's not like a textbook, it's a novel. I'm not going to lie to you, I've never been a big fan of birds, but afte...more

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Dec 12, 2008 Chris Lawnsby rated it 5 of 5 stars

Awesome, awesome, awesome book. I love animals, so perhaps my review is biased, but I really think most people will love this book. Heinrich constructs an entire book about ravens, and I finished the book wanting more.

We learn about how ravens use tools, how they have symbiotic relationships with humans, and, yes, how they get jealous when their human friends spend time with other humans. Before reading this, the only thing I knew about ravens was that they were apt to quoth "Nevermore." Now, I...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Sacha rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was so disappointing after all the hype around it. The scientific "methods" made me so angry. The manipulations. The careless leaving of carcasses around the forest. The generalizations from single incidental observations.
This book is good for getting folks interested in a fascinating species. For getting people to look beyond themselves at another species. I just don't agree with the branding of these observations as full fledged research. One sample subject is not enough. Granted th...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Kevin rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a professor of biology at The University of Vermont its understandable that the author of this book ; Bernd Heinrich would want to write a detailed, specific, and scientific account of the mind of ravens; and he does just that throughout the book. But as a lover and admirer of ravens he also waxes poetic about them again and again. Blending the science with the myth and lore of ravens could have been a really good idea for a book but unfortunately, for me, the author didn't quite pull it off....more

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Nov 19, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

As in Winterworld, Heinrich astounds me. He is a hardcore naturalist (noticing everything) and scientist (questioning everything). Here he seems to investigate virtually every aspect of raven behavior, using aviary experiments, field observations and anecdotes. He climbs countless pine trees to spy on nests, hunkers for hours beneath snow-covered boughs, and has probably scraped up every roadkill in Maine and Vermont. The ravens are wonderfully intriguing and clever characters, and give me a hei...more

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Mar 23, 2011 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a gift to me from Alice Hallaran, biology teacher extraordinaire. I told Alice that I had become interested in the intelligence, or lack thereof, in birds - specifically crows. This book is written by a well-known and respected scientist and professor who has spent years studying ravens (a crow "cousin") in the wild and in captivity. It is a fascinating account of his developing relationship with these birds, especially two - Goliath,a raven he raised from a fledgling, and Whitefea...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Most of the science writing the average reader consumes fits broadly into the category of "pop science." I'll confess that I've fallen into the same trap lately; instead of digging in and finding exhaustively researched books, I've been content to just read summaries and explanations on the web instead of going to the source.

Not that there's anything wrong with pop science, of course, but sometimes you want to stretch out and really learn something for a change. Mind of the Raven is the perfect...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Teri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

I bought this book as an impulse buy from the 'Staff Recommendations' section of my favorite bookstore. I instantly regretted it because I don't have any particular interest in ravens, and it sat neglected on my bookshelf for years until I finally felt inspired to read it on a hiking trip... and WOW! I loved it!!

There are so many interesting stories about ravens, a bird I knew nothing about. But much more fascinating is the glimpse into the mind of Bernd Heinrich, the raven-obsessed author. And...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Andrew Frueh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, memoir

Heinrich is in many ways the Jane Goodall of the genus Corvus. There are also many similarities between his observations and the work of Temple Grandin on animal intelligence. Much like the two previously mentioned authors, his writing has the captivating quality of feeling more like a memoir than an ecology text. The reader feels almost as though they are by his side through his various investigations into raven behavior. In this work, Heinrich seems less interested drawing conclusions as he is...more Heinrich is in many ways the Jane Goodall of the genus Corvus. There are also many similarities between his observations and the work of Temple Grandin on animal intelligence. Much like the two previously mentioned authors, his writing has the captivating quality of feeling more like a memoir than an ecology text. The reader feels almost as though they are by his side through his various investigations into raven behavior. In this work, Heinrich seems less interested drawing conclusions as he is with making detailed observations, and leaving the conclusions to the reader.

One also has the sense that like Goodall, he has a real affinity and respect for his subjects. In his conclusion he writes: "I have come to touch the world and travails of a totally different yet kindred being that makes me feel less alone." One senses this spirit pervading the entire book. He writes about ravens almost as a sociologist observing the behavior of a foreign people, not as a biologist dissecting a lower life-form.

I noticed other reviewers have questioned the validity of his experiments based on his small sample size and lack of controls. While they may be correct to a degree, I think the job of an observational biologist is a challenging one. The most controlled environment to study animals is in a lab, but as Temple Grandin noted, laboratory conditions may completely fail to engage the unique way that an animal's brain has evolved to work. Heinrich says himself: "Throughout my studies, the goal has been to understand the birds' life in their natural environment, which provides context to almost everything about them. Almost nothing about them makes sense unless seen from that perspective, in the same way that very little about us makes sense unless seen from the perspective of our culture."

One walks away from this book not feeling like they know all their is to know about ravens. Instead, it's more of an appreciation or a profound respect for the complexity and sophistication of their mental capabilities. Ravens make such difficult research subjects because every bird is such a unique individual. When faced with a situation like that, laboratory dissections can only go so far. We need naturalists like Heinrich and Goodall telling us the stories of who they are as individuals to begin to see them not merely as research subjects, but, as he says, as kindred beings.(less)

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Oct 24, 2012 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-and-nature

While visiting the National Parks of Wyoming and Utah last year, I frequently spotted Mind of the Raven on the shelves in the parks' visitor center gift shops. After I returned home I found that I was still intrigued by the book and ordered myself a copy. Finally, a little more than a year later, I got around to reading it.

I have to say I had never given a lot of thought to ravens. I remember seeing some in a cage at the Tower of London back in 2000, and of course I'm familiar with Edgar Allan P...more

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Mar 03, 2011 trina rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: nature nerds, nerds

Shelves: non-fiction-equals-not-not-real

i harbor a deep and abiding love for people who are passionate about really obscure things... another word for it might be 'nerdy' about things. bernd heinrich definitely fits that bill. here is a man so consumed with ravens that he wanders vermont roads early in the morning to snatch up the best roadkill to feed the neighborhood ravens, so fascinated by ravens that he sits in a blind for hours, knee-deep in snow, just to make a few observations. most people don't care that much about anything,...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Victoria rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature, non-fiction

This book has sat on my shelves for a while, but after reading some interesting articles on the raven's relative, the crow, I thought that I would read more. While the Internet contains flashier anecdotes on these birds and their close relations, complete with video even, Heinrich's award-winning investigation is definitely more substantive. In a combination of personal observations across the globe, experiments and anecdotes of his own, Heinrich paints a fascinating portrait of this remarkable...more

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Jul 06, 2010 Jennifer Nelson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: animals, 2010-books

Having recently begun a fascination with ravens and crows, I found this book to be very interesting and enjoyable. Bernd Heinrich writes of his first-hand experiences with the "wolf birds," sharing his depth of knowledge with clarity and humor and also sharing his heart for these brilliant birds.

The downsides in this book are the abundance of facts and figures in certain parts that make for slightly dry reading and the infusion of Bernd Heinrich's evolutionary ideas. It is questionable how some...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book provides a pretty thorough insight into the complexities of ravens' mental lives. It balances anecdotes, scientific findings, inference and speculation in such a way that the data often (but not always) support the casual observation and anthropomorphism, and the anecdotes color the data sets in a way that makes them more interesting and emotionally impactful. At times, Heinrich seems to rush to judgement in spite of ambiguous experimental results, and he spends too much (i.e. any) tim...more This book provides a pretty thorough insight into the complexities of ravens' mental lives. It balances anecdotes, scientific findings, inference and speculation in such a way that the data often (but not always) support the casual observation and anthropomorphism, and the anecdotes color the data sets in a way that makes them more interesting and emotionally impactful. At times, Heinrich seems to rush to judgement in spite of ambiguous experimental results, and he spends too much (i.e. any) time complaining about the scientific community's failure to publish some of his work, but in general he does a good job tempering his obvious desire to find higher thought in ravens with the rigors of the scientific method.

The book illuminates a number of areas of the scientific process. For one, it illustrates the difficulties inherent in researching wildlife cognition and behavior in anything resembling a controlled way. It also reveals the many ways in which this research can be rewarding -- and at the same time some of the pitfalls. Heinrich has an obvious emotional connection to these animals, and this makes the experience of researching them more meaningful but also makes misinterpretation of data possible.

The book's greatest flaw is that the writing is at times distractingly bad. The book is riddled with errors both grammatical and typographical far beyond the occasional failures of copy-editing that a reader expects to encounter over the course of 350+ pages. And at times you'll find yourself rereading a sentence several times in order to untangle the convoluted knot of words Heinrich has chosen to express a certain idea. He also has an annoying habit of referencing things by name that he has not previously introduced -- for example, referring to a person by name without having previously told you who this person is.

This book is certainly a worthwhile read for anyone interested in either ravens' mental lives or wildlife research; but, like scientific research itself, sometimes you're going to have to slog through it in order to find the reward.(less)

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Jan 31, 2008 Kirsten rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-pre-12-07, from-library, non-fiction

This book, for some reason, took me ages to get through -- I think I started reading it in April! It was still very good, just quite dense, and a hard one to sit down and read for a long time because of all of the information contained within. Heinrich has made an exhaustive study of the habits and quirks of ravens. His biggest area of interest is the measure of their intelligence; much of what ravens do seems incredibly brilliant to humans, but how much of it is innate, how much of it is learne...more

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Jun 11, 2010 Rainier rated it 3 of 5 stars

All right I am a major nature fan and when time permits I pursue learning about one favorite animal or another and currently it is the family Corvus which includes ravens and crows. An extremely intelligent bird and highly social. The book chronicles many years and many mating pairs closely watched and recorded. If you’re into ornithology or wildlife in general you may enjoy this, but a must read for all "black bird" haters as this will turn you around.

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Jun 21, 2010 Stephanie Jewett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Heinrich, a biologist, has studied ravens for years. In this book he shares his observations about these fascinating birds--their intelligence, loyalty, and sense of fun. "Wolf-birds" show personality attributes that are amazingly similar to those of humans; including crankiness, competitiveness, affection, and joy. You won't look at a raven- or even a crow- the same way again.
*wrote this review for a "staff favorites" page on the library's website*

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Mar 08, 2011 Foxthyme rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science, reference

I want to LOVE this book. But as many reviewers say, it doesn't happen. The author should have had a ghost writer. If he did, it should have been a better one.

A note: There are things scientists do that the regular population doesn't do. If we did, we'd be obsessive compulsives or just plain weirdoes or likely in jail for animal torture. Books for the lay person need to be sensitive to these facts.

Even though I was raised in a scientific household, and I'm a hunter and fisherman, I was not thril...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Pat rated it 5 of 5 stars

Completely fascinating book! I read this years ago but just remembered it today when I was in a bookstore with my friend Uri who said I'm reading this really amazing book about ravens. I said well, I know a great one too that I read years ago, called Mind of the Raven. She said, that's it, that's the one I'm reading! I was happy to be reminded of it and I think any of you animal and nature lovers would really enjoy it too.

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Oct 12, 2011 Lara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-nature, own, 2011

First of all, this was not a fast read. Detailed documentation of the author's ongoing study of ravens in New England is not always page-turning, but it was nonetheless fascinating. I am not one who needs convincing on the subject of complex intelligence and emotions in non-human animals, but Heinrich's painstaking work using the scientific method is exactly what it takes to make these ideas widely acceptable. The ravens turned out to be more confounding than even he imagined. For every seemingl...more

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About Bernd Heinrich

Bernd Heinrich was born in Germany (April 19, 1940) and moved to Wilton, Maine as a child. He studied at the University of Maine and UCLA and is Professor Emeriti of Biology at the University of Vermont.

He is the author of many books including Winter World, Ravens in Winter, Mind of the Raven and Why We Run. Many of his books focus on the natural world just outside the cabin door.

Heinrich has wo...more

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Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254704.Mind_of_the_Raven?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1173183652l/254704.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254704.Mind_of_the_Raven?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich[/url]

Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds

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