A satisfying read from a masterful stylist, this will appeal to any fan of nature writing or personal essays. Additionally, Helen Macdonald's beautiful illustrations add resonance to each chapter's subject.
The highly intelligent Corvus genus, including crows, magpies, rooks and ravens, fascinate Woolfson the most, and she transmits their appeal with startling clarity.
Describing how her birds communicate (nearly all the house birds talk), she reveals distinct personalities and idiosyncrasies she also discusses birds in the wild and natural history, and her neurologist husband is particularly keen on bird brains. Woolfson learned how to care for everything from infant birds to elderly parrots with dysfunctional backgrounds the menagerie eventually includes a swearing starling, a young rook named Chicken, and Spikey the magpie. The doves were followed by housebirds: a cockatiel for their daughter, a flightless rosella parrot the pet store couldn't get rid of, and a succession of unfledged birds rescued by neighbors. Shortly after settling with her husband and two daughters in a rambling Edwardian house in Aberdeen, Scotland, the gift of several pairs of doves inspired UK novelist and nature writer Woolfson to convert her new coal shed into a dovecote. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Her account of her experiences is funny, touching and beautifully written, and gives fascinating insights into the closeness human beings can achieve with wild creatures.
Woolfson tells the darker story of way corvids have always been objects of superstition and persecution and with the lightest of touches, she weaves in the science of bird intelligence, evolution, song and flight throughout. We hear about Chicken's fears and foibles: her hatred of computers and other machines and her love of sitting on Woolfson's knee in the evening and having her neck scratched the birds' elaborate bathing rituals, springtime broodiness, and tendency to cache food in the most unlikely places.
But above all, it has been the corvids (a talking magpie named Spike, Chicken the rook, and, recently, a baby crow named Ziki) that she has formed the closest attachments with, amazed by their intelligence, personality and capacity for affection.Living with birds has allowed Woolfson to learn aspects of bird behaviour which would otherwise have been impossible to know - the way they happily become part of the structure of a family, how they communicate, their astonishing empathy. Other birds have also taken their place in the household - a magpie, starling, parrot and the inhabitants of an outdoor dovehouse. That rook - named Chicken - has lived with the family ever since. Esther Woolfson has been fascinated by corvids, the bird group that includes crows, rooks, magpies and ravens, since her daughter rescued a fledgling rook sixteen years ago.
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