It so often happens this way – not more than half a week or so after a promising new book makes its appearance in my post box, Mark Avery has a review of it posted to his blog. Most recently, the book in question is “Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden” by Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates, as published under the venerable William Collins imprint of HarperCollins UK.
Mark is deeply engrossed in two forthcoming books at the moment – “Rebirding” by Ben Macdonald, and “Bird Therapy” by Joe Harkness – both of which he promises to comment upon at length at a time closer to their respective official dates of publication.
Imagine that you’re a Seventeeth Century merchant of some means, and you’ve just acquired a new pet Nightingale. It’s a lovely bird with an exquisite song; doubtless soon to become an object of envy amongst your friends at your next dinner party. But as you sit admiring it, you are suddenly struck by a troubling thought: “What am I going to feed it; what do Nightingales even eat?”
Not being much of a television viewer, I tend to miss most of what occurs in that medium – even things I might find interesting or useful. Just such an interesting and useful program was apparently aired on the public broadcasting series Nature back on 1 November with their feature on Helen MacDonald titled “H Is for Hawk: A New Chapter.”