Adam Nicolson is an award-winning nature writer with a deep knowledge of the Scottish landscape. Some of his notable nature works include _Sea Room_ about the Shiant Isles, a group of uninhabited islands in the Hebrides, _The Seabird's Cry_ about the disaster afflicting the world's seabirds and _Life Between the Tides_, a boundary-crossing account of the tides in human and animal life. He lives on a farm in Sussex.
_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. Every page is a thrill." ~ Isabella Tree, author of Wilding_
Adam Nicolson joins us to discuss his new book _Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood,_ a profound and philosophical exploration of the birds all around us.
_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._
_Adam Nicolson 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._
'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_
‘As moving as it is fascinating, Bird School is a deeply inspiring work which made me see and appreciate the birds anew.' JAMES MACDONALD LOCKHART, AUTHOR OF _WILD AIR_