Tuning in to birdsong is hard to beat

LIKE the birds, we are creatures of sight and sound, not smells. Tune in, says author Simon Barnes, to “the soundtrack of planet Earth” and benefits, material and spiritual, will follow.

His entertaining book, Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed, An Introduction To Birdsong, is of the ‘birdsong made simple’ variety.

In it everything is minimised. It’s small physically, most chapters are two or three pages long and the short staccato sentences have few subordinate clauses. The simplicity, however, is deceptive; Barnes knows his subject and presents it far more effectively than do the authors of more erudite tomes. He recommends a birdsong podcast which readers can download when reading the text. Although sound recordings help beginners, Barnes insists that the best tutors are the birds themselves.