Authors: Bernd Heinrich
ISBN-13: 9780061136054, ISBN-10: 0061136050
Format: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date Published: May 2007
Edition: Reprint
The author of numerous bestselling and award-winning books, Bernd Heinrich is a professor of biology at the University of Vermont. He divides his time between Vermont and the forests of western Maine.
Heinrich involves us in his quest to get inside the mind of the raven. 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. He studies their daily routines, and in the process, paints a vivid picture of the ravens' world. At the heart of this book are Heinrich's love and respect for these complex and engaging creatures, and through his keen observation and analysis, we become their intimates too.
Heinrich's passion for ravens has led him around the world in his research. Mind of the Raven follows an exotic journey—from New England to Germany, and from 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. Each new discovery and insight into raven behavior is thrilling to read, at once lyrical and scientific.
"With ravens I'm no longer always sure of how to distinguish a simple from a more complex hypothesis, how to know whether all of the ravens' behavior is somehow complexly preprogrammed or whether they know or learn to know what they are doing" [, Heinrich writes.]
Acknowledgments | ||
Preface | ||
1 | Becoming a Raven Father | 1 |
2 | A Field Experiment | 12 |
3 | Ravens in the Family | 31 |
4 | Ringing Necks for Baby Food | 49 |
5 | Education | 64 |
6 | The Fate of Young Ravens | 73 |
7 | Settling in a Home Territory | 82 |
8 | To Catch and Track a Raven | 92 |
9 | Partnerships and Social Webs | 107 |
10 | Pairs as Cooperative Teams and Sharing | 131 |
11 | Hunting and Foraging | 137 |
12 | Adoption | 146 |
13 | Sensory Discrimination | 155 |
14 | Individual Recognition | 163 |
15 | Dangerous Neighbors | 180 |
16 | Vocal Communication | 191 |
17 | Prestige Among Ravens | 206 |
18 | Ravens' Fears | 216 |
19 | Ravens and Wolves in Yellowstone | 226 |
20 | From Wolf-Birds to Human-Birds | 236 |
21 | Tulugaq | 245 |
22 | Caching, Cache-Raiding, and Deception | 255 |
23 | Morality, Tolerance, and Cooperation | 269 |
24 | Play by Ravens | 280 |
25 | Deliberate Acts? | 295 |
26 | Testing Raven Intelligence | 312 |
27 | Brains and Brain Volume | 325 |
28 | Are Ravens Conscious and Emotional? | 332 |
29 | Back to the Wild | 343 |
Afterword | 353 | |
Notes and References | 357 | |
Index | 373 |