Vesper Flights

by Helen Macdonald

Animals don’t exist to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves.

From the internationally acclaimed author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved pieces, along with new essays on topics and stories ranging from nostalgia and science fiction to the true account of a refugee’s flight to the UK. Her pieces ranges from accounts of swan upping on the Thames to watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary to seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, what we do when we watch wildlife and why.

This is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world around us, by one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Essays, Science, Memoir, Animals, Birds

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 25, 2020

About the author

Helen Macdonald is a writer, poet, and naturalist. They are the author of the bestselling H Is for Hawk and Vesper Flights along with Shaler’s Fish, a history of falconry, and two other books of poetry. They've written and presented award-winning TV documentaries for PBS and the BBC. Prophet is their first novel.

Reviews

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The award winning Helen Macdonald's eye wanders far and wide in this thoughtful, sensitive, poetic and beautifully written collection of essays, some more substantial than others, on the complexities of the natural world, the environment, climate change, and people. She looks at flocks, made up of huge numbers of individual birds, a marvel of nature, linking it with attitudes to refugees, often seen as a mass to be judged and feared, a parallel where Helen suggests they should be viewed as individuals just like us, who want what we want. Animals and birds are often judged through human eyes as those that are acceptable and those that are not, much like the undeserving and deserving poor, a divisive perspective that promotes and justifies inequalities.

A recurring strand through this book is that humans view the natural world with its animals and birds as mirrors of ourselves, of our wants and needs, but of the difficulties of seeing beyond to this to intuit and see animals as sentient beings in their own right, with their own needs, wants and lives separate from humans. The non-religious Helen interest wanders into philosophy, theology and religion, looking for answers to the mystery, the patterns, the sacred and magic of nature, such as the Vesper Flights of swifts, although I was surprised that she didn't venture to look at and explore the Eastern philosophies and religions, and indigenous peoples' perspectives such as the those of Native American Indians and Aborigines. There is much that is autobiographical, such as her childhood exploration of the teeming with life meadows, observing the changes, and the shrinking of natural habitats. One incident stayed in my mind, the Great British Ostrich Bubble, and where Helen finds herself putting an ostrich out of its misery with a rock and a novelty penknife.

There is so much Macdonald touches on, such as the planet Mars, rewilding projects, the sorrow of birds in cages, cuckoos, life and nature in high rise Manhattan, the comic pushing of goats, politics, inequalities, even Brexit, marginal communities and a boy and parrot's immediate connection and dance with each other. I am not going to able to do justice to this fascinating and riveting book, but I appreciated the inclusion of the arts, culture and particularly literature, such as Barry Hines's Kes, and excerpts from William Blake's epic poem Milton. I think many readers will love and adore this, and I can see myself coming back and rereading parts again in the future. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook....read by Helen Macdonald

It took me awhile to finish this audiobook/memoir....
I enjoyed these essays a little at a time - best when being outdoors myself.

There are over 40 essays...about nature, birds, butterflies, other animals, insects....
....nature in every shape and form....
climate change, and other phenomena’s of the physical world.
Helen engages us with thoughts about philosophy, psychology, theology, spiritualism.....and being moral human beings.
She shared a wonderful story from her childhood of playing in a favorite meadow. Her little mind soaked up her surroundings like a sponge. It was soooo endearing —and even brought back some childhood ‘freedom-playing’ tree climbing, creek playing, butterfly catching memories of my own.

Some of the essays were more interesting to me then others. If I read this book too fast - it was too much.
I love nature - birds, plants, rocks, mud, sand, the ocean, just being outside!!
.....but ‘a few’ of her stories lost me. My mind couldn’t take in as much as she was dishing out all at one time. Helen is brilliant.
I know some things went over my head....( which is why I needed to slow way down with this book)....but I got plenty of value.
By reading this in small doses, I felt it allowed me to appreciate this book even more.
Regardless....( some essays I enjoyed more than others).
Helen Macdonald is a one-of-a-kind beautiful human being.....
Her writing is an arm-extension to her own wonderful soul.
And talent?/!!!!!!...... my goodness ..... she is over-flowing with knowledge and love for the world we live.

We toss the word *inspiring* around easily.....but when it comes to Helen Macdonald....she is THE REAL DEAL!
INSPIRING!!!!

4.5 .....

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are in, what the scientists are calling, the sixth extinction. This is a man-made event due to our actions and inactions. Though McDonakd is aware of this, that is not the main focus of these wonderful essays.

"I hope that this book works a little like a Wunderkammer. It is full of strange things and it is concerned with the quality of wonder."/

Si she goes on to show us the wonder, the magical that nature provides. From a field, where as a child she would lie face down to discover what was hidden beneath the grass, to magnificent bird nests. Watching the many birds that fly at night,from the Empire State building to mushroom picking in the wild, both with knowledgeable friends. A trip to observe an eclipse that she found both terrifying and awe inspiring.

The personal, as she suffers from migraines and discusses how they affect her and a discussion of migraines themselves. There is so much more, and I loved each and every one.

A look into the mystery, the wonder if nature, what is there to experience if we only open our eyes. What will be lost, if we don't protect and act now.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book consists of 41 essays about nature, and sometimes about humans, and sometimes about humans interacting with other species on our planet Earth. Helen Macdonald writes very well. I do believe I will seek out her first book, ‘H is for Hawk.’ That got a ton of praise and awards. I have yet to look at reviews for this book, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this book garnered the same amount of laudatory attention.

I tend to read on the fast side but that is when it comes to fiction. If I was to read history books, no way could I read so quickly. Accordingly, it took me several days to go through this book…5-7 essays per day. And I needed a dictionary. Learned a lot of new words (e.g., abattoir, numinous, and vesper to name just a few).

I learned lots of stuff from this collection. I was astounded by some of the material. If it doesn’t put you in awe of Mother Nature, I am not sure what will. Just these several sentences in “The Arrow-Stork” astounded me:
• You watch young cuckoos find their way to Africa with no parental help, see loggerhead turtles swim seven and a half thousand miles from feeding grounds off Mexico to the beaches of Japan; discover bar-headed geese migrating over the Himalayas, in doing so enduring extreme and sudden changes in elevation that would disable or kill a human. You can marvel at the bar-tailed godwits flight from Alaska to New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean.

Then there’s several essays involving swifts, truly amazing birds. They rarely touch ground expect to nest…. they can be up in the air for years. Swifts fly from four months to 2-4 years, and some after leaving the nest never touch down on earth again. They fly while sleeping because half their brain is operating on wake mode. They can fly the equivalent of 5 times around the circumference of the earth per year. Yeesh!!!!! 😮 😮 😮

Reviews:
• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/bo...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
• https://www.npr.org/2020/08/29/906979...

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this book for Harvard Review.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The other week, I realised that the books that had excited me the most in the past two years or so were either in the nature writing category or/and were about the environment in some way. Vesper Flights is one of those books.
My goodness, what an extraordinary writer Macdonald is.
She managed to transport and inform me, and to make me wonder and wander via her poetic writing and beautiful reading voice (I listened to the audiobook).
Most essays focus on nature, with birds being the protagonists. Through personal stories, travel stories, people encountered throughout her life, Macdonald encapsulates the unmitigated damage humans have done to the environment that caused the extinction and almost extinction of so many birds, trees, insects. She does it in direct but subtle ways. There's philosophical pondering on how humans perceive and relate to animals, and who would have thought, but even bird keeping and bird watching depend on one's class. Fascinating.

Now that I feasted on Macdonald's writing, I will have to read her H is for Hawk.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Naturalist Helen Macdonald, author of the immensely successful H is for Hawk, gives us a collection of 41 (!) texts about the "love for the glittering world of non-human life around us", as she herself explains. As the book contains only 272 pages, there are many short essays and even shorter vignettes, combining information about wildlife and meditating on the fact that us humans tend to see our natural surroundings as mirrors of ourselves, that we search for meaning pertaining to our position in the world. Topics range from all kinds of birds (unsurprisingly) to car accidents with deer and the sexual implications of mushrooms - as Macdonald states, the little book is a Wunderkammer "full of strange things and it is concerned with the quality of wonder."

Macdonald really is a smooth writer, she has the ability to make the reader feel her personality without putting herself in the center of the texts. It always shows how much she cares for the environment, even if some of her positions might seem rather robust to city dwellers (like me). I'd recommend to read the book in little portions, it's clearly not meant to be read like a novel. It also helps to have an interest in the scientific aspects of the natural world. And as a warning: It might have affected my rating that my ARC did not clearly separate the texts, so I was constantly wondering when one text ended and another one began (all texts have a rather open structure) - this drove me quite nuts, and it isn't the author's fault.

I have a hunch Macdonald would get along really well with the great American bird enthusiast Jonathan Franzen. His bird-loving essay collection is The End of the End of the Earth: Essays.

[Vartika · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be human is to see ourselves as the center of the world, to hold nature at an arms length and look at it as a mirror of ourselves; separate from us but not entirely discrete; a reflection of our needs, our thoughts, and our lives.Vesper Flights, a collection of over 40 luminous narrative essays by the acclaimed naturalist Helen Macdonald, brings the natural world out of the woods not as an entity we have dominion over but as something beautifully complex and worthy of sav(our)ing for reasons beyond the ones we ascribe and assume.

Ask someone about science and you would be told that it is a pursuit of both knowledge and pleasure—the same also holds true for reading. However, in cleansing itself of the lyricism inherent to nature as modern science overwhelmingly does, it often perverts both knowledge and pleasure into something that is by definition dispassionate and utilitarian, which is how we regard the non-human today. In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald mixes science and naturalism, social commentary and memoir into a sort of transcendent literature that can communicate the "qualitative texture of the world" and (re)turn nature to explicable magic—something that we value and can urge ourselves to save.

Whereas H is for Hawk made us look afresh at the way we connect to nature, this book surpasses it vastly in merit: it examines the intersection of humanity and 'habitat' on a wider and far deeper plane, covering the ways in which we interact with animals, birds and the ecosystem on both personal and on cultural/community levels. Macdonald has a gift for subtlety as well as poetry, and weaves in socio-political conditions (including Brexit, nationalism, and the crisis of immigration) with personal recollections and factual information with breathtaking, thought-provoking ease.

Here, migraines become the perfect metaphor for our approach to climate change; the distress of changing childhood landscapes is contextualised against worries just as great; and migratory birds and cold war politics come together. Here, I learnt about people like Nathalie Cabrol; about Aeroecology, mushroom, swifts, berries, and bearded reedlings; about how nature can be unrecognisably man-made—fascinating things that I would never have known otherwise and am all the more grateful for. Some of my favourites essays in this volume were "Tekels Park," "Migraines," "The Student's Tale," "Ashes," "Swan Upping," and "Rescue"—all full of facts, emotions and experiences, of the mundane and the extraordinary, of love and respect for diversity being sown and nurtured. This is a book I desperately wanted to finish for all I would have known and cherished and the end of it, but also one that I wished would never end.

I was provided with an electronic ARC of this book by Vintage Digital and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, but I can't wait to actually purchase my own physical copy: so much to underline, so many sections I'd like to photocopy and pass under people's doors. So many reasons to commend this book onto more people's bookshelves!

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Helen Macdonald's first book since H is for Hawk, which made it an obvious one to suggest when I was asked what books I would like as birthday presents. That book was beautiful and deeply personal, both as a study of grief and as an introduction to falconry.

This book is rather more difficult to categorise, as it consists of over 40 short essays, many of which started life as commissions for the New York Times magazine and The New Statesman. There is still a degree of unity, and the arrangement is clever, allowing some themes and stories to run through several consecutive essays. There are still a lot of birds here, and many of the observations are fascinating, and there is also a political undercurrent as the culture of nationalist populism with its hatred of refugees and migrants is contrasted with the birds that cross the world without respecting national borders or human ideas of ownership.

Overall I found it an enjoyable and stimulating read, but perhaps not quite as striking as the earlier book.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Macdonald has written a delightful set of essays chronicling her many encounters with the natural world, particularly with birds. Her excellent writing brings alive the wonder of various bird species. Enjoy!

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved these essays. Just like in H Is For Hawk, Helen MacDonald makes me look at nature differently; become more observant of what's going on around me. I love watching the birds that come to my feeders, but now I'm aware of what goes on in the trees and the skies. These essays are elegant and peaceful reading, and I learned something new from each of them.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded up for the sheer pleasure of the author's writing

Alone among the literate world, I was made uncomfortable by the relationship between naturalist Macdonald and Mabel the formerly wild hawk told in H is for Hawk. These essays on many topics are written in Author Macdonald's justly celebrated elegant prose, and include so many aperçus that my commonplace book blew up. If you don't share my unease with people venerating wildness while taming it out of a fellow being, you'll enjoy this collection without my unshakeable unease.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

On warm summer evenings swifts that aren't sitting on eggs or tending their chicks fly low and fast, screaming in speeding packs around rooftops and spires. Later, they gather higher in the sky, their calls now so attenuated by air and distance that to the ear they corrode into something that seems less than sound, to suspicions of dust and glass. And then, all at once, as if summoned by a call or bell, they rise higher and higher until they disappear from view. These ascents are called vespers flights, or vesper flights, after the Latin vesper for evening. Vespers are evening devotional prayers, the last and most solemn of the day, and I have always thought “vesper flights” the most beautiful phrase, an ever-falling blue. For years I've tried to see them do it. But always the dark got too deep, or the birds skated too wide and far across the sky for me to follow.

Written as assignments or for friends, “for the joy of exploring a subject, for piecing together a story or investigating something that troubled or fascinated”, the forty-some essays in Vesper Flights cover an array of naturalist topics – very often autobiographical, very often political – in the beautifully lyrical writing style of Helen Macdonald that would be instantly recognisable to fans of her acclaimed memoir, H is for Hawk. I was fascinated by the range of scientific topics here and inspired by Macdonald's travels – not only through space, from experiencing the top of the Empire State Building with an Ornithologist to camping in Chile's Atacama Desert with an Astrobiologist, but also sharing Macdonald's travels through her own interior landscapes – and it all solidly underpins her ultimate quest for “finding ways to recognise and love difference. The attempt to see through eyes that are not your own. To understand that your way of looking at the world is not the only one. To think what it might mean to love those that are not like you. To rejoice in the complexity of things.” Helen Macdonald has lived a rich and curiosity-filled life, and being a poet, a naturalist, and a historian, she has the factual knowledge and literary skills to make persuasive art out of her experiences. Exquisitely suited to my own tastes and interest. (Note: I read an ARC from NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms. I know it's unfair for me to excerpt so extensively here, but passages are preserved for my own future recollection of what inspired me, and are not to be considered authoritative. Mea máxima culpa)

When I was a child I'd assumed animals were just like me. Later I thought I could escape myself by pretending I was an animal. Both were founded on the same mistake. For the deepest lessons animals have taught me is how easily and unconsciously we see other lives as mirrors of our own.

As “an odd and solitary child with an early and all-consuming compulsion to seek out wild creatures”, Helen Macdonald felt privileged to grow up on an estate complete with woods and meadow, teeming with wildlife for her to observe, engage with, and explore. This compulsion seems to have never left her and these essays cover a huge range of the places and species, mostly birds, that Macdonald has sought out around the world. It would be impossible to offer a summary of everything these pages contain, so what follows are just some of the bits that I found personally engaging in Macdonald's philosophy. And one of the main threads of that philosophy seems to be that we humans are blind to the diversity of life around us; and that which we don't see, we don't concern ourselves with. We find ourselves fascinated by raptors (and especially in urban landscapes):

Falcons haunt landscapes that speak to us of mortality: mountains, by virtue of their eternity; industrial ruins, by virtue of their reminding us that this, too, in time will be gone, and that we should protect what is here and now.

But something like the fungal networks underpinning forests – some of the oldest and largest organisms in the world – are all but invisible to us:

We are visual creatures. To us, forests are places made of trees and leaves and soil. But all around me now, invisible and ubiquitous, is a network of fungal life, millions of tiny threads growing and stretching among trees, clustering around piles of rabbit droppings, stitching together bush and path, dead leaves and living roots. We hardly know it is there until we see the fruiting bodies it throws up when conditions are right. But without fungi's ceaseless cycling of water, nutrients and minerals, the forest wouldn't work the way it does, and perhaps the greatest mystery of mushrooms for me is in how they are visible manifestations of an essential yet unregarded world.

I was particularly intrigued by Macdonald's trip to the top of the Empire State Building for night bird watching; a glimpse at an annual teeming swirl of life going on mostly unobserved, far above human notice. As she notes, insects travel above us in extraordinary numbers (half a billion a month over a square mile of English farmland – making up nearly three tons of biomass – a number estimated to be higher over New York City as “a gateway to a continent”), and in the wide open air over Manhattan's skyscrapers, it is said, “Once you get above six hundred and fifty feet, you're lofted into a realm where the distinction between city and countryside has little or no meaning at all”:

During the day, chimney swifts feast on these vast drifts of life; during the night, so do the city's resident and migratory bats, and nighthawks with white-flagged wings. On days with north-west winds in late summer and early fall, birds, bats and migrant dragonflies all feed on rich concentrations of insects caused by powerful downdraughts and eddies around the city's high-rise buildings, just as fish swarm to feed where currents congregate plankton in the ocean.

Whether writing about how she lives in denial of the symptoms of oncoming, crippling migraines (which Macdonald then extrapolates to explain how humanity can live in denial of the biggest threats to our collective existence), or writing about viewing a solar eclipse and feeling an overwhelming sense of community, Macdonald makes many surprising connections here. And as I opened with, many of them are political connections: Conservatism and Swan Upping, deer as jingoistic symbolism, waiting for a thunderstorm like waiting for the next Brexit or Trump, “Waiting for hope, stranded in that strange light that stills our hearts before the storm of history”. A few examples that gave me pause, as in the morality of tagging and tracking migratory animals:

In our age of drone warfare, it is hard not to see each animal being tracked across the map as symbolically extending the virtues of technological dominance and global surveillance.

Or watching a gathering of migratory Eurasian cranes in northeastern Hungary and contemplating the razorwire on that country's southern border, meant to keep out Syrian refugees:

Watching the flock has brought home to me how easy it is to react to the idea of masses of refugees with the same visceral apprehension with which we greet a cloud of moving starlings or tumbling geese, to view it as a singular entity, strange and uncontrollable and chaotic. But the crowds coming over the border are people just like us. Perhaps too much like us. We do not want to imagine what it would be like to have our familiar places reduced to ruins. In the face of fear, we are all starlings, a group, a flock, made of a million souls seeking safety.

Or the flaw in thinking that a species is native just because it's familiar:

The history of hawfinches in Britain reminds us how seamlessly we confuse natural and national history, how readily we assume nativity in things that are familiar to us, and how lamentably easy it is to forget how we are all from somewhere else.

Several times Macdonald returns to the idea of people conflating natural and national history and it made me wonder if it reflects a new idea – a pushback against globalisation and freer borders by those who idealise a return to some “purer” past – but she also shares older stories, like the farmers during WWII who attacked migratory birds that gleaned their fields: “No protection for the Skylark” ran the headlines in the local press: “Skylarks that sing to Nazis will get no mercy here.” She writes about the glamour she assigned to Bewick's swans when she was a child – because they migrated from the Soviet Union, “crossing the Iron Curtain with absolute unconcern”. And she tells the fascinating story of a book she loved as a child and found more insidious when she revisited it as an adult: A Cuckoo in the House by Maxwell Knight – a former MI5 intelligence officer known as “M'; yes, he was the inspiration for the James Bond character – was a popular book about the bird famously known for its nestly subterfuges, and Knight not only hid within its pages the vocabulary of his secret world of agents, runners, and handlers, but its release somehow transformed Knight into an avuncular naturalist who began a second career on BBC radio, encouraging children to observe, explore, and report on their environments, in a way that incidentally was training the country's next generation of spies and spooks. I suppose this conflation of the natural with the national has always been with us.

If there is a common theme here, I suppose it's a call to be more aware – of both the hidden ecosystems around us and the hidden biases we harbour – and through this awareness, to spread more of that notion of love that Macdonald opens with; to see with the eyes of others and rejoice in the complexity of things. Thoroughly worthwhile read, beginning to end.

[Michael Livingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just adore Helen Macdonald - she writes about the natural world with wonder and joy. Nobody captures the feelings that paying attention to animals can bring as well as she does. This is a collection of essays and is inevitably a bit scattershot, but so many of these pieces hit me right in the heart - the migratory birds streaming above the empire state building at night, the fledgling swift lifting off Helen's hand, the wounded stalk that illustrated bird migration - there's just so much amazing stuff in here. I've been reading more and more nature writing this year, and this has been a real highlight.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any doubt that Macdonald could write a worthy follow-up to H Is for Hawk evaporates instantly. Even though these essays were written for various periodicals (New York Times Magazine and New Statesman) and anthologies (including Ground Work) and range in topic from mushroom-hunting to deer–vehicle collisions and in scope from deeply researched travel pieces to one-page reminiscences, they magically form a coherent whole. Equally reliant on argument and epiphany, the book has more to say about human–animal interactions in one of its essays than some whole volumes manage (so sorry, Esther Woolfson).

As you might expect, birds are a recurring theme: nests and egg collecting, watching a night migration from the Empire State Building, cranes, swans, urban peregrine falcons, swifts’ habits (the source of the title and cover image), orioles, cuckoos, storks, hawfinches, Bird Fair versus bird-keeping as a hobby, and nightjars. But even where birds are the ostensible subject, as in two pieces about swans, there is so much else going on. Birds are a means of talking about home and belonging, and so swans become a way of talking about false notions of what is native and what is alien, a way of interrogating what Brexit meant.

Although, on the whole, this book is less personal than H Is for Hawk, Macdonald still does plenty of reckoning with the facts and possibilities of her life. In this vein, I especially loved the final three essays: “Dispatches from the Valleys,” about her time working at a falcon-breeding farm in Wales and learning how to recognize that a situation was no good for her; “The Numinous Ordinary,” about the traces of holiness in a secular life; and “What Animals Taught Me,” which is about everything, but perhaps mostly about recognizing our fellow creaturehood (“a bird in the sky on its way somewhere else sent a glance across the divide and stitched me back into a world where both of us have equal billing”).

Her last lines are unfailingly breathtaking. I’d rather read her writing on any subject than almost any other author’s. In my top few for 2020’s nonfiction releases.

Just as a note to self, these are the other topics she covers:
• wild boar
• flying ants
• migraines
• walking in the woods in winter
• a solar eclipse
• extremophile organisms in Chile (the Atacama Desert)
• hares
• foxes
• glow-worms
• Wicken Fen
• a summer storm
• ash trees
• feeding wild animals
• berries
• wildlife hides
• animal rescue
• goat-tipping
• the paintings of Stanley Spencer

Favorite passages:

“I think differently of home now: it’s a place you carry within you, not simply a fixed location. Perhaps birds taught me that, or took me some of the way there.” [similar to things Tim Dee has said, including in Greenery]

(on viewing an eclipse) “Goodbye, intellectual apprehension. Hello, something else entirely. … The exhilaration is barely contained terror. I’m tiny and huge all at once, as lonely and singular as I’ve ever felt, and as merged and part of a crowd as it is possible to be. It is a shared, intensely private experience. But there are no human words fit to express all this. Opposites? Yes! Let’s conjure big binary oppositions and grand narratives, break everything and mend it at the same moment. Sun and moon. Darkness and light. Sea and land, breath and no breath, life, death. A total eclipse makes history laughable, makes you feel both precious and disposable, makes the inclinations of the world incomprehensible”

“All of us have to live our lives most of the time inside the protective structures that we have built; none of us can bear too much reality. We need our books, our craft projects, our dogs and knitting, our movies, gardens and gigs. It’s who we are. We’re held together by our lives, our interests, and all our chosen comforts. But we can’t have only those things, because then we can’t work out where we should be headed.”

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

“What science does is what I would like more literature to do too: show us that we are living in an exquisitely complicated world that is not all about us. It does not belong to us alone. It never has done.”

“None of us sees animals clearly. They’re too full of the stories we’ve given them. Encountering them is an encounter with everything you’ve learned about them from previous sightings, from books, images, conversations. Even rigorous scientific studies have asked questions of animals in ways that reflect our human concerns.”

This was a very hit or miss collection of essays for me. I found many of them excessively twee. My experience might have been better if I had read them serialized in a weekly newspaper rather than reading them one after another. I preferred the essays that were actually about other animals rather than the ones that were primarily about the author and/or other humans. I particularly liked “Vesper Flights” and “Rescue” which were about swifts. The essay titled “Goats” was just dumb and I also didn’t care for the essay in which the author killed an ostrich and intentionally (and moronically) started a stampede. 3.5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

*This hasn't happened to me in a long time, but I wrote a review of this wonderful essay collection and somehow in the moment of posting this morning, I inadvertently deleted it. Tears shed, and it was too late to reconstruct, so until I muster up the energy to attempt a rewrite, suffice it to say I loved this. Forty-one beautifully written essays by one of my favorite writers on nature, science, nostalgia, grief and goats that shouldn't be missed.

[Indran · Rating 1 out of 5]

At 172 pages, I think I've earned the right to mark this as Did Not Finish. I was really looking forward to reading some artfully written reflections on the natural world. The New York Times review suggested that Macdonald focuses on the way in which humans treat animals as a canvas on which to project our preconceived cultural ideas (about gender, for example).

Disappointingly, this thought-provoking premise hasn't been addressed in any depth so far. The book comes across as a mishmash re-issuing of previously published essays.

The writing style is heavily focused on Macdonald's intense emotions in reaction to encounters with animals or plants--without making an effort to bring the reader along on her emotional and spiritual journey. For example, this morning as I lay listening to the audiobook, Macdonald described herself weeping after a swan sat down next to her. It had something to do with a recent breakup which she doesn't bother to describe. In fact, it seems as though about half of the essays involve either weeping with joy, being gripped by bottomless terror (e.g., while looking at the structure of a freaking mushroom), or succumbing to a nearly transcendental state of wonder. To be clear, the problem isn't that she feels it, it's that by smothering me in her own reactions, there is no oxygen left for me to share in the experience.

My second criticism of her writing style is that it feels like an endless string of unsuccessful attempts to write poetically about the natural sciences. Macdonald goes very heavy on metaphors and vivid verb choices (glittering, shimmering, etc.) yet I was always left uninspired and dissatisfied. Maybe that's because of the interiority of her essays which led me to always feel at a distance from her subject matter. But I listened to Vesper Flights alongside Italo Calvino's Mr. Palomar, which shared in some of the subject matter (e.g., the humbling complexity of murmurations and other natural phenomena), and I found the latter to be as inspiring as can be.

On the upside, Macdonald's whispered narration of the audiobook is calming and I like her British accent. In comparison to other 1-star reviews I've written, this is a particularly subjective one, as I imagine that many readers may see her writing style as soul-baring, a perfect harmony between the arts and the sciences, etc. I just very much didn't.

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I regret that I've never gotten around to reading H is for Hawk so I jumped at the chance to read Macdonald's latest book, Vesper Flights--a collection of essays that are mostly personal memoir and how she came to be so in love with the natural world around her, but also sprinkled with tidbits of British history and modern day politics. Her experiences and thoughts on birds, nature and the environment are fascinating. Is our ignorance of what we are doing to the Earth rather like frogs in a pot of water not noticing that it is reaching the boiling point? Let us fall in love with nature ourselves and take action to improve things before it is too late.

As I have mentioned before, I am fascinated by titles of books and 'vesper flights' in this case refers to the amazing flights of swifts on summer evenings as they arise higher and higher into the air en masse as if summoned by a call. Lovely vision.

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the award-winning author of H is for Hawk, a brilliant and insightful work about our relationship to the natural world. Our world is a fascinating place, teeming not only with natural wonders that defy description, but complex interactions that create layers of meaning. Helen Macdonald is gifted with a special lens that seems to peer right through it all, and she shares her insights--at times startling, nostalgic, weighty, or simply entertaining--in this masterful collection of essays. From reflections on science fiction to the true story of an Iranian refugee's flight to the UK, Macdonald has a truly omnivorous taste when it comes to observations of both the banal and sublime. Peppered throughout are reminisces of her own life, from her strange childhood in an estate owned by the Theosophical Society to watching total eclipses of the sun, visits to Uzbek solar power plants, eccentric English country shows, and desert hunting camps in the Gulf States.

These essays move from personal experiences into wider meditations about love and loss and how we build the world around us. Whether more journalistic in tone, or literary--even formally experimental--each piece is generous, lyrical, and speaks to one another. Macdonald creates a strong thematic undertow that quietly takes the reader along piece to piece and sets them down, finally, at a place they've never been before. The inimitable Helen Macdonald returns in style with her unmistakable passion and enthusiasm for mother nature and the awe-inspiring natural world woven throughout the narratives. There are some real takeaways from this book and I know I will remember many of the interesting anecdotes for a long time to come. Relatable, raw, real and thought-provoking, this anthology truly cements Macdonald’s position as one of the most refreshingly original and profoundly perceptive writers of our time. Many thanks to Grove Press for an ARC.

[Carolyn Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to imagine that Helen Macdonald and I are friends!!! 💚
That's what it felt like while reading/listening to this book, like talking to a friend! Especially because she narrator's the audiobook herself!
🌿
After listening to, and adoring, her narration of her first book "H is for Hawk." I was very eager to listen to her most recent book "Vesper Flights."
💚
She discusses a myriad of topics from animal watching, to her childhood, to birdwatching at the top of the empire state building, to her adulthood, and how the natural world has affected her entire life. She writes with eloquence, honesty, and the deepest love for nature!
🌿
It was an absolute joy to find yet another kindred spirit in Helen Macdonald, while listening to her read "Vesper Flights!"

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this series of forty-one essays, Helen Macdonald writes beautifully about the natural world and how humans interact with it. It is a unique combination of scientific and poetic writing. She addresses topics such as deer, hares, swans, various birds, mushrooms, badgers, trees, and fireflies. She offers insight into habitat destruction, decreasing biodiversity, and climate change. She includes observations about Brexit and the refugee crisis. It can feel a bit fragmented and, as in many collections, I enjoyed some essays more than others. It is obvious that Macdonald loves nature, and her passion comes through in her writing. I listened to the audio book, read by the author. She has a pleasant reading voice and creates a peaceful ambiance.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a moment in this collection when Helen Macdonald, bored of an evening, cakes herself in mud and stalks a herd of bulls. If I hadn't already been sold on the wonders of nature and our chance encounters with it, that bit would've done it. She's smart and nuts.

To top it all off, midway through my bookly journey, a chickadee swooped in and chittered around me before hopping right onto my knee for a visit. Sweet, unknowable creature, (s)he.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful (yet at times, breathtakingly heart-breaking) book, well worth reading.

This was recommended to me long ago (repeatedly, by multiple trusted friends and readers). I hesitated to buy it, and then, once I bought it, it languished on the to-read stack. Why? I have no idea. But I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. Better late to the party than never to arrive.

There are so many wonderful nuggets in the book, but I'll highlight two of my favorites.

I found Symptomatic uniquely powerful and evocative and, well, effective. I expect I'll cite one of the long passages from that, Macdonald's riff on denial, in the future.

I'm a sucker for goats (particularly baby goats) anyway, so it's no surprise that, one of the shortest riffs, Goats generated a full-throated belly laugh, and, as a special bonus, caused me to wake up in the middle of the night giggling. Thank you, Helen Macdonald, for the unbridled moment of joy.

Given how widely read and appreciated the book is, I'll forgo waxing eloquent (LoL) on its virtues and instead offer a retrospective reader's tip: If I had it do over again, I would not read the book cover-to-cover. Rather, I would have put it on the bed stand and, on a nightly basis, read (and savored) a single chapter on a daily basis. (I expect, at that pace, I simultaneously would have worked through any number of other books.) Reading it "through," I fear that I too quickly moved on to the next chapter, vignette, anecdote, experience, insight. And that's a shame.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book of essays by Helen MacDonald the author of Hawk. Her essays focus on nature. She writes about animals, trees, landscapes, and how these relate to mankind. MacDonald is very knowledgeable and a fine writer.

Her essays in Vespers are thought pieces that can be enjoyed again and again. The book could almost be used as a daily devotional. Each offering will open up a reader’s sense of wonder. Her vivid descriptions of birds and their various nature’s leave no doubt that she loves her role as an observer and commenter on nature.

In doing these pieces, as in Hawk, she reveals parts of herself. Describing herself as a loner at a young age and the subject of bullying says much about how she became such an excellent observed of life who is able to see subtle and not so subtle changes in behavior and landscapes. An enjoyable and enlightening read for nature lovers and truth seekers.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

my first reading of Macdonald. oh wow such beautiful thoughts, sentences, and she gets her idea across easily in such short pieces. but they are very short pieces, bordering on human interest rather than science and natural history. I can't wait to read her "h is for hawk "

[Erin Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very overwritten book about nature by an inside kid who fancies herself an outside kid, and seems both terrified of and emotionally overwhelmed by the outdoors. When she’s not crying about bird eggs (she cries A LOT in this book), she’s using an anecdote about her friend (A VERY TALENTED ARTIST) hitting a deer like it’s a harrowing once in a lifetime experience instead of a crappy but normal one for most people in America who drive cars to brag about how intelligent and successful her friends are. There’s a whole chapter about a harrowing adventure to the Chilean wilderness, where she is on an “expedition” to climb a volcano that is truly not a harrowing hike at all (seriously, you can pay a local in San Pedro de Atacama like $80 and they’ll take you there. It’s about a two hour drive from town and the whole hike up to the top and back takes half a day. You can do it without oxygen. San Pedro is a super busy tourist town.) Who is this book written for? Sickly British shut ins who are allergic to fresh air? City dwelling gala environmentalists who have never peed behind a rock? People who love their nature writing smothered in gravy? Anybody who has spent time in nature won’t find much truth in this book, only self aggrandizing exaggeration. There are a few lovely moments but after 100 pages of so I was rolling my eyes at least once a page.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

With H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald wrote a showstopper that was at the top of many lists. Vesper Flights, beginning with its beautiful title, is composed of numerous essays, and at least in the prepublication galley I had, they are all strung together, no breaks. Until I understood this odd presentation, I had to put on the brakes and reread several "beginnings" to regather the context. But the material itself is mesmerizing. Whether she is talking about migratory habits and going to the top of the Empire State Building for a nature "hike," or describing her own migraines, she does so with grace, power, poetry and blazing intellect.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these essays, MacDonald invites the reader into the splendor of nature, especially that of birds, as she also draws insights into human nature. I would have appreciated these more had I read them more slowly, one a week, rather than approaching this like a book of chapters, reading one after the next.

[Bonnie G.]

I am not going to rate this book or count it in my books read total since I am cutting out at 20%. It is beautifully written like H is for Hawk, which I loved. That one had a great subtext about healing through connecting to nature. These essays are about the connection between people and the natural world more broadly which is less my speed. The subject matter is not resonating with me. I am bored. This is a me problem. I love birds, I hike, and I have birded on and off for years, but for me, that is a sensory thing. I am never the one with the field guide and the checklist of sightings -- I don't care what I am seeing, I just like seeing it. And as much as I enjoy the seeing, I don't feel quite as tied to the natural world as many others. If the subject appeals to you, I think you will love it. Macdonald writes like an angel.