Enchanting and fascinating, discover the extraordinary world of Britain's ordinary garden birds, related by the brilliant, unconventional woman who opened her doors to them.

In the late 1930s, Len Howard packed up her life in London, bought a plot of land in Sussex and built herself a little house there. This was to be Bird Cottage, a place where the doors of the house were open to the birds of the garden – great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds, willow warblers and many others. Len lived the rest of her life alongside her bird neighbours, with some sleeping in her bedroom and many flitting in and out all day long.

This edition contains the two books she wrote about the birds, Birds as Individuals and Living with Birds. They are studies not just of bird behaviour but of their character, intelligence, singing voices, likes and dislikes. Enchanting, life-enriching, revelatory and completely original, this is a gorgeous evocation of a life lived in intimate contact with nature and a book about birds unlike any other.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STEPHEN MOSS

CONTAINS BIRDS AS INDIVIDUALS AND LIVING WITH BIRDS

Praise for Birds as Individuals ‘A unique, engaging and elegant insight into the lives of our precious and magical songbirds’ Arthur Parkinson. ‘A quiet revelation of attentiveness and sympathy. It impressed and moved me very much’ Steven Lovatt, author of Birdsong in a Time of Silence.