Within graceful, light-footed nature writing, as in ''Bumblebee Economics,'' his little 1979 classic on the energetics and foraging strategies of bumblebees. ''Aside from the pure enjoyment of climbing snowy trees in the dark at subzero temperatures, I did it to count birds.'' He has a rare ability to embed dense scientific explications ''I spent one winter getting up every day hours before dawn to climb tall spruce trees near baits I had put out,'' he reports in the new book. He's the sort who combines formidable scientific rigor with a sense of irony and an unslaked, boyish enthusiasm for his subject, and who even at his current professorial age seems to do a lot of tree climbing To be famous for feeding on carcasses? Because, as Heinrich nicely says, ''the poetry of biology resides hidden in opposing tensions, and the often arduous fun comes from trying to reveal it.''īernd Heinrich is no ordinary biologist. Of field study and experiments described in ''Mind of the Raven.'' Why did this enterprise seem so compelling? Why plumb the intelligence of a big black bird that lives in cold places and happens also Notwithstanding the consensus, he wrote, ''a review of the literatureĬonvinces me that no proof of the raven's singular intelligence has yet been published.'' That absence of proof, plus his own affection for the common raven, Corvus corax, has incited him to the long course In his earlier book ''Ravens in Winter,'' the biologist Bernd Heinrich acknowledged this reverential buzz but put his scientific skepticism on record. Everyone who spends time in the wild north, it seems, has a raven story. Ravens steal, deceive, clown around acrobatically, mimic human speech and play pranks on dogs. Furthermore, they're famously mischievous. Other anecdotal accounts likewise portray ravens using tools, foresight, visualization, high analytical Of volume displacement, dropping pebbles into a narrow-neck vase until the water level came up within reach for a drink.

The Roman naturalist Pliny described a raven bright enough to exploit the physics According to Eskimo cosmogony, the god Raven made all things, creating light out of mica flakes and humans out of rock. According to Thucydides, ravens were too smart to feed on the carcasses of animals

ByĪctual measurement they are the brainiest of birds, and on subjective evidence they seem more sapient than most other living creatures. The story reflects a widespread belief, spanning cultures and centuries, that ravens possess uncanny intelligence.

Orse legend tells that Odin, lord of the gods, was attended by two ravens, named Hugin (Thought) and Munin (Memory), who served him as reconnaissanceĪgents, returning after each long, snoopy flight to perch on his shoulders and whisper into his ears. Just how smart are ravens, anyway? The biologist Bernd Heinrich went to great pains to find out.

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich