Bird Brains: How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think

Jennifer Ackerman, author of the New York Times bestseller The Genius of Birds, discusses her investigation into the bird way of being and the recent scientific research that dramatically shifts our understanding of how birds live and think. In an illustrated talk drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, Ackerman explores the latest studies on the ingenuity of birds revealed in some of their surprising behaviors, research that is upending old ideas about what is normal in birds and what we thought they were capable of.

This is a presentation of the Smithsonian Institution’s Earth Optimism series.

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