Bird School

By Adam Nicolson's home, there is a forgotten field overrun by bracken and thicketed by brambles. It is passed through by deer, wild boar and many birds—nightingales who sing in the evening, a cuckoo, turtle doves, pheasants, robins, owls. This book traces Adam's adventure setting up a small shed on the edge of the field and getting 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. It is beautifully written book which on one level teaches us a great deal about seemingly ordinary birds, and on another exposes our relationship as people with the wild.