Eric Lawton reviewed Gifts of the Crow by Tony Angell
Review of 'Gifts of the Crow' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
A bit disappointing. Inconsistent so some parts were good, others infuriating.
It was really interesting to find out how smart and social the crow family are.
I found the more scientific parts (experiments and observations) the best, because that way I knew how much weight to attach to the claims. The anecdotes were also very interesting and there were enough to support many of their points.
The annoying parts were all the speculative parts, e.g. "We suspect that when a crow sees a predator, its adrenal glands release corticosterone that binds to receptors on neurons in the brain stem and causes...." and on for a couple more lines. What audience is this for? Followed by a whole paragraph at this technical level with no support at all. Of little value to the non-technical reader and I doubt it helps specialists either.
The description of an experiment with a mirror where …
A bit disappointing. Inconsistent so some parts were good, others infuriating.
It was really interesting to find out how smart and social the crow family are.
I found the more scientific parts (experiments and observations) the best, because that way I knew how much weight to attach to the claims. The anecdotes were also very interesting and there were enough to support many of their points.
The annoying parts were all the speculative parts, e.g. "We suspect that when a crow sees a predator, its adrenal glands release corticosterone that binds to receptors on neurons in the brain stem and causes...." and on for a couple more lines. What audience is this for? Followed by a whole paragraph at this technical level with no support at all. Of little value to the non-technical reader and I doubt it helps specialists either.
The description of an experiment with a mirror where the crow did not recognize itself but continued to attack the image as it would a rival was followed by "We should have given him a second or third chance... we bet Al (the crow) would have recognized subsequent encounters with his reflection" is bad science.
There were a lot of side anecdotes (e.g. about blue tits) that I didn't see the relevance of, lots of adjectives that added nothing other than trying to amplify the excitement. It was very US-centric. American anecdotes were cited as being "in Seattle", with others as "in Russia".
The drawings of both animals in action and brain anatomy are excellent.