Bird behaviour

Hi Sam

I can't give a personal recommendation but I found this BOOK which looks like it might give a good introduction. The reviews seem to suggest that it's more suitable for beginners rather than experienced birders.

Hey Sam!

Here's a couple of recommendations that fall more in to the 'Old Wive's Tales' category that you mentioned. I've not read many books about birds with a fundamentally academic background, as I prefer folklore and creative naturalist writing.


Pasta for Nightingales

It’s the first-ever English translation of a seventeenth-century ornithology text and it has the original historic watercolour illustrations printed in to it, too. It provides a fascinating glimpse of ornithology’s earliest days - a period when folklore informed natural history studies as much as science did.


The Peregrine - J.A. Baker

A wonderful book about the author’s obsession with observing these birds of prey. He followed a pair of them across Essex for years, noting everything about their lives. I was introduced to this book when reading ‘Landmarks’ by Robert MacFarlane - there’s a chapter dedicated to Baker and this book of his. There's also more great books highlighted in that. I'd also recommend anything by MacFarlane (though his work's not strictly about birds; more about nature and the environment as a whole.)