Len Howard

Enchanting and fascinating, discover the extraordinary world of Britain's ordinary garden birds, related. In the late 1930s, Len Howard packed up her life in London, bought a plot of land in Sussex and built herself a little house there. This was to be Bird Cottage, a place where the doors of the house were open to the birds of the garden – great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds, willow warblers and many others. Len lived the rest of her life alongside her bird neighbours, with some sleeping in her bedroom and many flitting in and out all day long. This edition contains the two books she wrote about the birds, Birds as Individuals and Living with Birds. They are studies not just of bird behaviour but of their character, intelligence, singing voices, likes and dislikes. Enchanting, life-enriching, revelatory and completely original, this is a gorgeous evocation of a life lived in intimate contact with nature and a book about birds unlike any other. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STEPHEN MOSSCONTAINS BIRDS AS INDIVIDUALS AND LIVING WITH BIRDSPraise for Birds as Individuals‘A unique, engaging and elegant insight into the lives of our precious and magical songbirds’ Arthur Parkinson‘It impressed and moved me very much’ Steven Lovatt, author of Birdsong in a Time of Silence

Len Howard forged extraordinary relationships with the birds in her Sussex garden during the 1950s. This groundbreaking work in bird studies is also a captivating and immersive piece of nature writing.This bird biography tells the story of one exceptional Great Tit called Star. In opening her home to wild birds, Len Howard gained their trust and made astonishing discoveries about their capabilities. Star’s character and intelligence is revealed, and with patience, consistency and sensitivity Howard even succeeds in teaching Star to count using taps of her beak.Full of joy and wonder, as well as deep knowledge and fascinating detail, Living with Birds encompasses bird studies of all kinds including the fate of a lame fledgling, the bond between Great Tit parents and their babies and observations of migrant birds. It is also the story of how Howard succeeded in developing such an unusual relationship with the wild birds in her garden.''Howard seems to have stood on the brink of communication with a wild bird, something till now hardly conceivable...awe-inspiring'' Observer