Tweet of the Day: A Year of Britain's Birds from the Acclaimed Radio 4 Series

by Brett Westwood, Stephen Moss

Imagine a jazz musician, improvising on a theme. Then imagine that he is able to play half a dozen instruments - not one after another, but almost simultaneously, switching effortlessly between instruments and musical styles with hardly a pause for breath. If you can countenance that, you are halfway towards appreciating the extraordinary song of the nightingale . . .

Wherever we are, there are birds. And wherever there are birds, there is birdsong. It's always a pleasure (and a relief) to hear sounds which prove the world's still spinning: whether it's the sighing of migrating redwings on a damp October night, the twitter of swallows fresh in from South Africa in April or the call of the cuckoo in May.

Based on the scripts of BBC Radio 4's beloved year-long series, and distilling two lifetimes' knowledge, insight and enthusiasm into these pages, Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss take you month by month through the year, and the changing lives of our favourite birds. From peregrines swapping sea-cliffs for skyscrapers to swifts spending almost their entire lives on the wing; from charms of goldfinches to murmurations of starlings; from ptarmigans thriving in the Highland snow to the bright green parakeets thronging London's parks; this book is packed full of extraordinary insights and memorable facts. Tweet of the Day is a book for everyone who loves Britain's birds.

(Illustrations © Carry Akroyd)

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Natural History, Birds, Animals

448 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

Reviews

[Abigail Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely follow up (to me) of the authors' book WONDERLAND, focused on what I cared most about in that book: the birds! I loved these short, evocative introductions to Britain's birds, full of vivid descriptions, interesting anecdotes, and pretty darn amazing facts.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK... but not quite as advertised from "The Acclaimed Radio 4 Series". The radio series – still available on the BBC Sounds podcast service – invited various wildlife observers to contribute brief snippets first thing in the morning. The voices of David Attenburgh, Michael Palin, Chris Packham and others accompanied the sound of the birds themselves.

Brett Westwood can't provide the sounds, but I also felt there weren't enough "British tweets". Make no mistake, though, Westwood is a fine writer, but it's not "the radio series come to the written page." He's authored many masterpieces, particularly Wonderland: A Year of Britain's Wildlife, Day by Day written with Stephen Moss. Compared with that, this was a slight let-down, but still very good. Breakfast-table reading.

[Jo H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely lovely. Good to dip in and out of as the descriptions of each bird are fairly short. The descriptions and accompanying illustrations really bring each of the birds to life, and now I must go and listen to the radio series it is based on!
Obviously it’s more difficult to write descriptions of the bird song than it is to play it on the radio, but it is tackled beautifully, and captures the character of each in limited space.
I borrowed this from the library but if I had bought it, it would definitely get a space in my bookcase.

[Ga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book.
It only has around 200 birds, and only a quick description of each.
The best part is being able to learn all the calls.
I wish there was another book so to incorporate the remaining British birds.

[Anthony Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually think this book is perfect for someone who is getting into birds, with each entry based on its coverage in the Radio 4 programme of the same name, giving a short, entertaining introduction.

[Mark Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

For early risers, the few moments at around 6am on BBC Radio 4 for several months has been a date with nature. More specifically, a 90 second date with the song or call of a species of British bird. The birds were the stars, they always are, but a range of well-known birders and naturalists, broadcasters and conservationists, told us a little about the bird of the day or what the species meant to them.
This is the book of the series, the text of the commentaries, but it also includes information on how the series was put together, how the two authors got into birding and a bit about the history of birdwatching too. It may seem a little odd to produce a book about a series of radio broadcasts of bird songs, but this book works very well and is a pleasure to read. The different, short, accounts of over 200 species are varied in tone and approach but combine to make a lovely book.

This is a book into which you can dip at any time for a quick moment of bringing birds and their songs into your life. But when you dip you will find yourself reading the next account, and then the next. You may find that opening this book is like opening a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits - you'll be surprised how far through the packet you'll get on one sitting (but it's not fattening - unless you really do eat a biscuit with each species and then it will be!).

A glance through the index may get you thinking 'why is he in this book?' - Francois Mitterand (a typical tale of the French love of birds). Ken Livingstone (an unfortunately typical tale of the English intolerance of birds), Gioacchino Rossini (how cultured are you?), Edward Thomas (you must know that poem, surely - it's perfect) and the occasional woman too (but not many).

Whereas the book can't fully deliver the joy of the sounds birds make, it compensates by being lavishly illustrated with scores of Carry Akroyd's black-and-white illustrations and dozens of colour, full-page Akroyds too.

Tweet of the Day by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss is published by Saltyard Books and is available from Amazon (as is Mark Avery's Fighting for Birds and as will be Mark Avery's A Message from Martha which can be pre-ordered now (and has a cover by the aforementioned Carry Akroyd)).

[Tim Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to it on Audible.com It's a pity they don't have sound recordings of every bird they talk about, since I thought that was the point. The text is excellent though, a very short but informative description of every bird, with interesting anecdotes and the occasional quote from literature. I have been a British birder for about 40 years, but I nonetheless learned plenty of things I didn't previously know about our native avian fauna. Including an albatross as a British bird might be stretching it a bit! The two readers are also very good.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes insomnia more tolerable.


For the past two years the audio version of this has shared insomnia duties with Bill Bryson’s History of Everything. They both are capable of lulling me to sleep, and are both capable of keeping me interested if sleep has left the building.

Occasionally I add a book that I listened to on audio rather than turned the pages and read. There never was a book more suited to the format. Difficult to listen to birdsong from the printed page.

[Robert C Mayho · Rating 4 out of 5]

A magnificently entertaining companion to the Radio 4 series, this wonderfully produced and illustrated book is stuffed full of great writing about British (and other) birds and contains many fascinating facts.

[Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Works so much better with audio

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the black and white bird pictures.