Book Review: Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich (Harper Perennial 2020, first published 1999)

What an interesting man, and what an interesting subject! Heinrich is fascinating in himself - a woodsman, naturalist, experimental ecologist, marathon runner and intellectual. Here he turns that formidable intellect to studying ravens. The book covers decades of his explorations into the raven world, rearing them, feeding them, experimenting on them (in a behavioural sense) and above all observing them with a fierce curiosity. He writes well, and vividly recreates the difficulty of climbing towering trees in the snow to check progress of nestlings, or endless hours in freezing and wet hides waiting for ravens to arrive at a feeding station. It was fascinating to see his personal take on the scientific method - coming up with all sorts of hypotheses based on observations and his own fertile imagination - then devising incredibly interesting and practical experiments to try to disprove or rule out these proposals. And throughout the ravens are the main characters, whether wild birds or those he has caught or reared - they loom large as fascinating, complex, and yes, intelligent characters with personality and individual traits as well as species wide characteristics that must rank them as some of the smarter and charismatic creatures on the planet. 

I don't normally enjoy reading science / non-fiction that is 25 years old as it often feels really dated. While this was first published in 1999, it still feels fresh and immediate, and my only caveat is to say I now want to read some more current research to see what continuing research has built on Heinrich's foundations. I'm also interested to learn more about our own Australian Ravens, so will do some digging to see what has been published.