BIRD SCHOOL: A BEGINNER IN THE WOODS (HB)

Close to Adam Nicolson’s home in Sussex is a field overrun by bracken and brambles. It is the haunt of nightingales, the occasional cuckoo, ravens, robins, owls and warblers - a marvellous layer of life he had previously almost ignored. Adam 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. This was his bird school.