Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures; some may rival primates and even humans in their particular forms of brain power. Some can remember the locations of thousands of stored seeds; others repeat thousands of different songs, or make their own tools. They also have highly developed social intelligence, play games, display a sense of fairness, and may even grieve. Jennifer Ackerman travels from laboratories in Barbados and New Caledonia to the great tit communities of Britain and the storm-ravaged mid-Atlantic coast, exploring how findings about the bird brain itself are revolutionizing our view of what it means to be intelligent.