Unlike Gifts of the Crow, Mind of the Raven is focused less on questions of the raven's intelligence, and more on behavior and social structure. Which, to be clear, are good things to have a grasp of it you want to assess intelligence, so you have some idea what you're looking at.
Since Heinrich has studied both wild ravens, and ravens that he took from nests as hatchlings and raised tame, he mixes in his observations and discussions of both. Which is quite handy, because it's a way to see what behaviors are learned from observation, and which are innate. For example, whether dealing with wild or tame ravens, if you add something new to an area they visit frequently, they will react with fear and suspicion. Even if it's food, they may ignore it entirely, or only approach cautiously.
One of the enjoyable parts is that Heinrich talks about all the complications and speed bumps in the scientific process. Something that happens to Heinrich more than once is when the ravens behave in a way entirely counter to what he expects. He sets a tame female loose near a big animal carcass he's provided as a food source. He expects that she'll join the pack of non-mating ravens that roost together at night, then bring them back with her in the morning. Instead, she avoids that roosting pack, staying by herself and trying her best to not let any other ravens find her food source. So he theorizes that ravens roost together so if they can't find food, they can follow another raven that makes a beeline towards some food they found. But if they've already got a food source, there's no need.
The book has a lot of that. Observations about how and when ravens cache food, about the hierarchy of dominance between a group of ravens, and how that translates to everything from calling to feeding to bathing. Interestingly, he wasn't able to determine what induces ravens to bathe. They do so in all temperatures (assuming there's water available), at no set pattern, with no apparent relation to how dirty they might be.
'The three birds flew calmly, wing-tip to wing-tip. As they came closer, I heard the soft gro calls that signified trust and friendship. These three birds were friends, and the idea that a territorial pair of ravens had friends outside the pair-bond that they tolerated, if not invited near the nest, seemed extraordinary.'
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