Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood

by Adam Nicolson

Overview

An intimate exploration of the lives of birds and their interactions with man, by a preeminent naturalist.

Poets and scientists, saints and naturalists, stalk through these pages. Neighboring cock robins duel almost to the death. Tawny owl widows are seen looking for tawny owl widowers to set up shop with. Blackbirds are found singing phrases from late Beethoven quartets, both in a garden in southern England (where they have been listening to records played through the open window of a drawing room) and in Bonn, where Beethoven himself first heard them and where they are still singing to the same rhythms two hundred fifty years later.

Bird School describes and follows Adam Nicolson’s progress over two or three years in trying to learn about, and eventually to create an environment friendly to, the birds of the farm where he lives in Sussex. In simple language that evinces his careful observational prowess, Nicolson aims to cross the boundary between the scientific and the prescientific understanding of birds, looking into why and how they sing, how they fly and breed, how they survive and migrate, how they have suffered at our hands, how we have loved them and damaged them, and how we might create, or re-create, a refuge for them. Here is a set of lessons for someone who knows little but cares a lot about the living world that is in such dire crisis. Here is life in the “rough grounds,” on the edge of culture and nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374617387
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/16/2025
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
File size:	129 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, landscape, and great literature. He is the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, the W. H. Heinemann Award, and the Ondaatje Prize. His books include The Life Between the Tides and Why Homer Matters. He lives on a farm in Sussex.

Editorial Reviews

“Bird School is elegant and involving. Like one of the nests Nicolson finds on his property, it’s been deftly assembled.” —Stephen Smith, The Observer (London)

“Deeply satisfying . . . A worthy addition to a literary lineage that stretches back to the eighteenth-century writer and naturalist Gilbert White.” —Joe Shute, The Telegraph

“Wrens, robins, buzzards, blackbirds and tits come to bird school to teach lessons about themselves alone: how they breed, fly, navigate, why they sing. Nicolson is a good student—a fine observer of the natural world—and for a while, he lives a bird lover’s dream.” —Charlie Gilmour, The Guardian

“[A] marvellous and revelatory guide to our native birdlife . . . Bird School is a magical reminder of the rich, inexhaustible pleasures of watching wildlife and bird-life, . . . an intoxicating and joyous invitation to us all, to step out into nature and take it all in.” —Christopher Hart, Daily Mail

“In addition to a wealth of facts about bird behavior, Nicolson has access to an endless fount of lyrical descriptions to make birds come alive on the page . . . An evocative ode to English birds that invites readers to look more closely at the world around them.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In this revelatory narrative, Ondaatje Prize winner Nicolson (Life Between the Tides) shares his experience observing birds near his home in Sussex... Nicolson is especially good at illuminating what goes unseen (or unheard)... 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." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Nicholson’s observations ramble with curiosity and delight in his local environment. Highly recommended for readers interested and soothed by reading about the natural world." —Catherine Lantz, Library Journal

"Wonderfully interspersed with his observations are quotes from poets, historical tidbits both national and local, ideas from proponents of the rewilding movement, and intimate moments with the local birds. This meditative, poetic work will find a niche in the hearts of nature and bird lovers on both sides of the pond." —Nancy Bent, Booklist

From the Publisher

★ 2025-05-28
A poetic study of birds and their place in the Anthropocene.

Nicolson grew up ignoring birds. For the British naturalist and author, they used to be “a blank, a flicker of nothing much, like motes in sunlight.” To fill this gap in his knowledge, Nicolson decided to attend his own “Bird School”—a personal commitment to learning about birds, their behaviors, and their relationship to human beings. To do so, he constructs an “absorbatory,” an observatory in his Sussex Weald farmland where he sought to “dissolve…the boundary between self and world.” Most chapters use a common species to explore a wider topic: robins and how they mark their territory, tits and breeding, ravens and how they think and communicate. While birds are a hyperlocal interest, much of the knowledge he shares is broad enough that readers will learn about bird behavior in general. In a chapter on songbirds, for example, readers learn that birds alter their singing schedule to work around an airport’s loudest hours. In addition to a wealth of facts about bird behavior, Nicolson has access to an endless fount of lyrical descriptions to make birds come alive on the page: A blackbird sings as “if a cherry could sing…rounded and full and fleshy, that dark sugar-juice”; holding a dead raven is like “exploring a derelict house.” The final two chapters address the elephant in the absorbatory: As mankind has flourished, most bird populations have dwindled. Nicolson’s solutions may be more applicable to those who own large swaths of land or work in environmental policy, but the book’s wider point can inspire any of its readers: If we learn to pay attention to the world around us, we’ll become a part of it again.

An evocative ode to English birds that invites readers to look more closely at the world around them.

Kirkus Reviews