Clayton South: CSIRO Publishing, 2015. Octavo, paperback, black and white photographs.

The first attempt to shine a critical and scientific light on the cognitive behaviour of Australian land birds. Demonstrating how intelligent and emotional birds can be, Kaplan describes complex behaviours such as grieving, deception, problem solving and the use of tools. Many Australian birds cooperate and defend each other, and exceptional ones go fishing by throwing breadcrumbs in the water, extract poisonous parts from prey and use tools to crack open eggshells and mussels. This book presents recent changes in our understanding of the avian brain and looks at how the Australian environment has shaped the evolution of unusual complexities in cognition and behaviour.