Waiting for the Albino Dunnock

Bol Partner

'A beautiful book' Tim Birkhead, author of BIRD SENSE 'A glorious, beautifully written pilgrimage into the soaring world of birds' Bel Mooney, DAILY MAIL Written by a beginner-birdwatcher with the freshness and passion of a convert, WAITING FOR THE ALBINO DUNNOCK explores the world of birds through the seasons of a single year. It describes encounters with particular birds in the landscapes of East Anglia where the author is rooted. Occasional journeys farther afield take the reader to truly wild places in the Outer Hebrides and Eastern Europe. Yet the ordinary experience of birdwatching is also far more than just that. The beauty of birds has the power to change lives, as it did the author's, and as in the case of the all-but-legendary snow leopard, it is more about the search than the result. Personal and elegiac in tone, the writing is an unusual combination of prose poems based on the actual experience of seeing a specific bird for the first time, woven with elements of science and wisdom traditions, ornithology (and its punning counterpart ornitheology), mythology and philosophy, taxonomy and history, literature and folklore, conveying the wider picture of what it means to be human in relationship to nature. WAITING FOR THE ALBINO DUNNOCK explores the degree to which wildness is embedded in the human psyche and how beauty is central to our mental and emotional wellbeing, while highlighting the careless damage we are inflicting on the natural world.

Bol

'A beautiful book' Tim Birkhead, author of Bird Sense 'The prose is sublime, and so is the intelligence behind it' Bel Mooney, Daily Mail The extraordinary world of birds has the power to change lives, as it did the author's. The pleasure and fascination of bird-watching, together with the silence and stillness involved, can play a part in changing the way that we live our lives - and can help us when we have to deal with adversity. Personal and elegiac, Waiting for the Albino Dunnock shows us how beauty is central to our emotional wellbeing, and reminds us of the careless damage we are inflicting on the natural world. This glorious pilgrimage into the soaring world of birds opens our eyes afresh to the beauty which surrounds us.