Birdland: A Journey Around Britain on the Wing

by Jon Gower

A joyous celebration of Britain’s rich bird lifeIn Birdland, journalist and lifelong twitcher Jon Gower explores our intimate connection with the bird life around us. From the symphonic song of the wren to the clack of a puffin’s beak and from epic migrations to sunset murmurations, birds are commonplace miracles. No wonder they have inspired our artists, writers and songwriters. Whether rare or abundant, Jon Gower visits some of the best places in Britain to watch birds, searching for some species he has always wanted to see such as wryneck, dotterel and barred warbler.

But all is not well in Birdland. Gower charts the many changes to Britain’s bird life over the last 50 years, as the countryside has seemingly emptied and in many ways fallen silent. He considers the effects of the climate emergency, the decline in biodiversity and warming oceans on birdlife and looks at work being done to mitigate these developments. But above all it is a celebration of birds and their being, and a call to arms to defend them. As Great Bustards return to our plains and eagles to our mountains, Jon Gower’s book examines the future from a bird’s-eye view.

Genres: Birds

320 pages, Hardcover

Published June 24, 2025

About the author

Jon Gower grew up in Llanelli. A former BBC Wales arts and media correspondent, he was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where he read English. He is a documentary maker for television and radio with a third of a century's credits to his name. Recent documentaries cover subjects such as the secret life as a poet of Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum (based on the book 'Oh Dad!' by Lloyd Robson) and the Summer of Love in San Francisco.

Jon has eleven books to his name, in both Welsh and English. They include 'An Island Called Smith,' about a disappearing island in Chesapeake Bay, which gained him the John Morgan travel writing prize, and 'Uncharted', a novel described by Jan Morris as 'unflagging and unfailingly inventive.' In 2009 he was awarded a major Creative Wales award to explore the Welsh settlement in Patagonia.

Along with novelist Tiffany Murray, Jon is currently a Hay Festival International Fellow, and his next books will be a novel called 'Y Storiwr', due out in July 2011 and 'The Story of Wales' which will accompany a landmark BBC series, due to be broadcast early in 2012. His second volume of short stories 'Too Cold for Snow' will appear in May 2012 as will a joint publication about the Welsh coastline where his text complements beautiful photography by Jeremy Moore.

In what little spare time he has Jon develops and performs theatre pieces with actor Gerald Tyler and trumpeter Tomos Williams, and reads, both to his children and occasionally by himself!

Jon lives in Cardiff with his wife Sarah and two book-loving daughters Elena and Onwy.

Reviews

[Roger Morgan-Grenville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Passionate, emotional and funny account of Britain and its people as a 'birdland'

[Alistair Crine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of joyful descriptions of the wild world. Birds in their landscapes and the birders who track and protect them.