12 Birds to Save Your Life: nature’s lessons in happiness
by Charlie Corbett (Michael Joseph, 2021)
This is a book to make you stop, watch, listen and allow encounters with the natural world to calm you, teach you, heal you, delight you. Charlie Corbett tells the personal and at times painful story of family tragedy, as his mother contracts and then succumbs to cancer, his own and his father’s responses in grief, and the whole family’s adjustment. And into this all too familiar human experience come the voices of birds, unbidden, unconcerned but speaking to a man in his need.
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now (Shelley on the skylark)
He allows us into the intimate, raw and sometimes endearingly eccentric world of his family of farmers, to a degree that one of my first reactions was “goodness me, I really hope his father and the rest of the family are happy with him writing this”! Yet one enduring memory of this book is the warmth and affection with which he writes about his wife, parents, siblings and wider family, while at the same time sparing us nothing – the reality of relationships with the rough edges unsmoothed, and unasked family mysteries laid bare. But his deep love for his mother, growing understanding of his father and most of all his own self-understanding as he deals with his own mental health, takes courage to write about. He also writes artfully, using quotes from naturalists and well-known poets – well-chosen and not too many. The result is moving, engaging and entertaining.
The book is beautifully crafted – one bird in each of 12 chapters. Each chapter weaves his personal and family history with the life and habits of the bird species in focus. Each chapter is followed by a few notes about the bird and its appearance, habitat, song and habits. This is not really a bird book, but a very human book into which the birds intrude. In most cases, life deals him turmoil, confusion, exhaustion and even despair, yet when he finds a moment to wait and be open to the birds that surround him, then he is able to find new perspective or just plain joy. These are the punctuation marks of his grief and rebuilding of confidence and contentment.
The all-year-round cheerful song of the robin cut through his exhaustion brought on by trying to be everything to his sick mum while also juggling many other balls. The early morning song thrush calmed him when overwhelmed by the sudden loss of the cornerstone of their family. The matter-of-fact familiarity of the sparrow’s chirrup gave him a pattern to slowly regain his broken confidence when anxiety piled up on depression to disrupt his life. Re-engaging with normal activities one step at a time. I have been there, turning a lonely corner and resolving to re-build “shingle by shingle / I’m patching up the roof”, as Eric Bibb sings it. And above all, the song of the skylark, tumbling, falling. Joyous.
Grief and other struggles that derail us are not easily overcome. We need each other, to look out for each other. We need to ask for help before the dam breaks. We need to stay close to those who care for us and be alert to those whom we care about. And also, we can look for and take comfort from whatever scraps of nature we have access to. The trees in the park, the waves on the shore, the wonderful chaos of a dawn chorus. A walk in the wood, an hour on the beach. These things can put our feet more firmly on the ground, connect us to the rhythms of tide, moon, seasons, light and dark, all of which are obscured and flattened by modern western lifestyles. Let the birds sing you joy.
[Bird illustrations from the RSPB website]
And elsewhere on the shelf…
- Norman McCanch A Lighthouse Notebook (Michael Joseph 1985) – amongst the many bird books we have accumulated, this is for me the most engaging. It is the record of a fine naturalist’s time spent as a lighthouse keeper around the coasts of the UK. He writes beautifully, personally and to crown it all is a great bird illustrator. A beautiful gem of a nature book
- Peter Bircham A History of Ornithology (Collins – The New Naturalist Library 2007) – a big solid and serious book which I found gripping, as it is full of the characters and pioneers and wonderful illustrators who have enriched our lives with birds.
- (and don’t even get me started on the bees…)
Some I’d like to read (it’s been a good month!) …
- Tim Birkhead Birds and Us: A 12,000 Year History, from Cave Art to Conservation (Penguin, March 2022) – I really must wait for the paperback.
- Steven Lovatt Birdsong in a Time of Silence (Penguin, March 2022) – in the quiet of lockdown, it was as if we listened to the birds for the time.
- Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson (author) & Lucy Moffatt (translator) Tapestries of Life: Uncovering the Lifesaving Secrets of the Natural World (HarperCollins March 2022)
None of the birds that Simon mentions would come as a surprise on a country walk, apart from maybe a curlew. The dust jacket shows a kingfisher, a wren and owls, common enough but not seen every day. Last week I found a group of birdwatchers by a local gravel pit, and asked what was up. It was a blue-winged teal, far from home in North America. Rare or common, nature never fails to cheer me up.