Overview

‘A feast for mind and soul, a treasure trove of insights into the enigmatic and enchanting world of the birds we share our lives with but barely notice. I have learnt so much. Every page is a thrill. Bird School has opened my eyes' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding Step into the hide for a glorious new encounter with the British wild Close to Adam Nicolson’s home in Sussex, there is a forgotten field overrun by bracken and thicketed by brambles. It is the haunt of deer and many birds – nightingales, the occasional cuckoo, ravens, robins, owls and in summer the sweet-singing warblers that come north from Africa to breed in English woods. This gorgeous book charts his attempt to encounter birds, to engage with a marvellous layer of life he had previously almost ignored. He wanted to look and listen, to return to ‘bird school’ and see what it might teach him. He built a small shed amongst the trees with nesting boxes and bird feeders. Cocooned inside, season after season, he got to know the birds: where they nest, how they sing, how they mate and fight, what preys on them, what they are like as living things. Beautifully written and woven through with philosophy, literature, science and a sense of wonder, always conscious that that this is an age in which the natural world is under siege, Bird School pulls back the curtain on seemingly ordinary birds, taking a long, careful and concerned look at our relationship with the wild. 'Golden threads of literary, philosophical and scientific insight run through Nicolson’s book, along with a sense that we are embarking on an adventure with him into a realm that we cannot hope to fully understand' THE TIMES 'A worthy addition to a literary lineage that stretches back to the 18th-century writer and naturalist Gilbert White…Bird School, then, is a fitting title: we should learn to rekindle our enduring love affair with birds, before they vanish from our sight' DAILY TELEGRAPH

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9780008490874

Table of Contents

Reviews

A Waterstones Best Book of 2025 'This is some of the best English prose of our time…Nicolson’s work is engrossing and uplifting because his extraordinary descriptive powers are matched by his attention and insight…Bird School demands that we expand our bordered selves and our limited knowledge, that we inhabit wider realities made of other lives…It is vital to our senses of hope and meaning that we attend to what is present in the world and what composes this present, Nicolson argues…The genius of this book is to marry the study of both, in art and joyful craft' Spectator 'Golden threads of literary, philosophical and scientific insight run through Nicolson’s book, along with a sense that we are embarking on an adventure with him into a realm that we cannot hope to fully understand' The Times 'Bird School is elegant and involving. Like one of the nests Nicolson finds on his property, it’s been deftly assembled' Observer 'A marvellous and revelatory guide to our native bird-life…There are chapters on songbirds and on migrants, all jam-packed with fascinating insights, as well as entire chapters on some of our most charismatic species, such as tawny owls and ravens… Bird School is a magical reminder of the rich, inexhaustible pleasures of watching wildlife and bird-life, not as an obsessive twitcher trying to tick off rare species, but simply being in nature… Bird School is an intoxicating and joyous invitation to us all, to step out into nature and take it all in. Relax. Breathe. And listen to the birds' Daily Mail 'Deeply satisfying… a worthy addition to a literary lineage that stretches back to the 18th-century writer and naturalist Gilbert White…Bird School, then, is a fitting title: we should learn to rekindle our enduring love affair with birds, before they vanish from our sight' Daily Telegraph ‘I have learnt so much. Every page is a thrill. Bird School has opened my eyes' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

'Deeply satisfying… a worthy addition to a literary lineage that stretches back to the 18th-century writer and naturalist Gilbert White…Bird School, then, is a fitting title: we should learn to rekindle our enduring love affair with birds, before they vanish from our sight' Daily Telegraph 'Bird School is a woodland-bird counterpart to his prizewinning The Seabird’s Cry, about the ten oceanic species that breed on the Hebridean Shiant Isles. This book is broader in scope, to match its subject and audience, and similarly combines vivid eyewitness accounts with facts and figures… full of manifold erudition and, like his previous bird book, avian vulnerability, which increases globally and relentlessly' The Oldie ‘Bird School is a feast for mind and soul, a treasure trove of insights into the enigmatic and enchanting world of the birds we share our lives with but barely notice. I have learnt so much. Every page is a thrill. Bird School has opened my eyes' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'A joyous journey of discovery! Bird School is a natural history tour de force and an impressive blend of the personal, scientific and cultural' Tristan Gooley, The Natural Navigator and bestselling author of How to Read a Tree 'A wonderful synthesis of patient fieldwork, science and spirit of inquiry. Bird School is a book which is tuned to the beauty, fragility and wonder of birds. As moving as it is fascinating, it is also a deeply inspiring work which made me see and appreciate the birds anew' James Macdonald Lockhart, author of Wild Air

Author Information

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, travel and the environment. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the British Topography Prize and lives on at Sissinghust Castle in Kent. His most recent book for HarperCollins is Sissinghurst, a wonderful and personal biography of a place – the story of a heritage, of a vision of connecting once more buildings and garden, fields and farms and of how that dream was realised.

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