A lyrical celebration of birdsong and the rekindling of a deep passion for nature.'At this
time of year blackbirds never simply fly: instead like reluctantly retired officers they're
always on manoeuvres and it's easy to see from their constant agitation that for them every
flower bed is a bunker every shed a redoubt and every hedge-bottom a potential place of
ambush'As the world went silent in lockdown something else happened for the first time many
of us started becoming more aware of the spring sounds of the birds around us. Birdsong in a
Time of Silence is a lyrical uplifting reflection on these sounds and what they mean to
us.From a portrait of the blackbird - most prominent and articulate of the early spring singers
- to explorations of how birds sing the science behind their choice of song and nest-sites
and the varied meanings that people have brought to and taken from birdsong this book
ultimately shows that natural history and human history cannot be separated. It is the story of
a collective reawakening brought on by the strangest of springs.
