The Minds of Birds (Volume 23)

Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural Environment Series

by Alexander F. Skutch

In this controversial culmination of a lifelong quest, Alexander F. Skutch, a well-known ornithologist who has studied birds for more than sixty years, makes a case for "believing that birds' mental capacities have been grossly underestimated." Lacking hard scientific proofs of what birds think and feel, we are left, Skutch argues, with inferences gleaned from observation of their behavior. His intimate, six-decade study of tropical and north temperate birds and his wide survey of the literature inform this remarkable review of the psychic life of birds. Although varying widely by species, many birds have a striking ability to recognize as individuals not only other birds of their own kind (which all look alike to humans), but also familiar humans, even after a long absence. They have good memories and give indications of forethought. Only humans take more elaborate care of their offspring than most birds do, and few animals of any kind live in such closely united families as those of cooperatively breeding birds, which carefully avoid incest. The diverse play of birds suggests their capacity for enjoyment. They can be taught to count up to eight, and some are known to use tools. The tastefully adorned constructions of bower birds and the songs of many other species also point strongly to an aesthetic sense. The journeys of migrants between known breeding and wintering territories separated by thousands of miles speak of memory and navigational skills that baffle human observers. True, Skutch concludes, inferential evidence only suggests hypotheses and cannot offer scientific proof. Nonetheless, his carefully gathered and documented observations, delightfully reported, accord with the strong intuition of many bird lovers that birds are not unfeeling automata but sensitive creatures, aware of what they do. Birders and behaviorist ornithologists alike will find Skutch's work provocative and rewarding–no more easily dismissed than the apparently purposeful behavior of the birds he describes. A timely and useful contribution to the debate on animal intelligence, this book offers--with precision, force, clarity, and a wide range of examples--a challenge to the longstanding mechanistic view of nonhuman life.

Genres: Birds, Nature, Animals

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Doctor Alexander Frank Skutch was a naturalist and writer. He published numerous scientific papers and books about birds and several books on philosophy. He is best remembered for his pioneering work on helpers at the nest. Skutch wrote over 40 books and over 200 papers on ornithology, preferring a descriptive style and eschewing statistics and even banding.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last short chapter, "Summary and Conclusions," is enough to grasp the gist of the argument, and so is all one needs to read. But the rest is all supportive, and is what one *wants* to read. Lots and lots of fascinating anecdotes & discussions, chosen as the most scientifically rigorous of all the experience that Skutch accumulated from a lifetime of observations, discussions, and readings.

The thrust of the argument is that all birds are at least somewhat more intelligent than we've generally given them credit for, and their sentience and self-awareness are worthy of much further study. (Great Tits seem to be amazingly intelligent, and yet, before reading this book, I had never heard of their talents, and would not have guessed so.)

"It is not evident why anthropomorphism, respectable in comparative anatomy, should be rigidly excluded from comparative psychology."

"Now that field naturalists are becoming aware of the survival value of dissimulation by the active minds of birds, more subtle instances of deceit are being investigated." (It's not just the broken-wing trick of the Killdeer... we should fund studies and learn more....)

In the chapter "Homing and Migration" an effective argument is made for the claim that hummingbirds, tanagers, warblers, vireos, and other "summer residents are tropical birds that go north to breed, not, as was once thought, northern birds that fly south to escape winter's chill."

"We have no reason to believe that parrots are exceptionally intelligent birds.... Long-lived, readily domesticated parrots are exceptionally favorable subjects for the study of avian intelligence...."