Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood

In this revelatory narrative, Ondaatje Prize winner Nicolson (Life Between the Tides) shares his experience observing birds near his home in Sussex. After realizing he “had never paid much attention to birds,” Nicolson set out to educate himself on the creatures and built a shed in the countryside from which he could study them. In vivid and poetic prose, Nicolson describes the wonders he encountered (“The blackbird’s song is like the sound of someone enjoying a lovely dinner, rolling around in his mouth the deliciousness of everything life has given him”) and highlights a wide range of avian behaviors, like how songbirds—blackbirds, robins, and wrens—begin vocalizing in a particular order at the break of dawn likely because of their varying eye sizes; the bigger their eyes, the earlier they can detect the morning light and thus start to sing. Nicolson is especially good at illuminating what goes unseen (or unheard), like the fact that birds perceive time more slowly than humans. He also draws attention to the ways human activity, like intensive farming, has caused bird populations to plummet in recent decades. This is a beautiful love letter to the avian world. (Sept.)