Birdland is an account of how birds inhabit and enhance our lives in Britain. Jon Gower explores our deep and various relationships with birds, from the way in which rare ones excite twitchers through to how they inspire artists and musicians. He visits some of the best places in Britain to watch them at a time when many species are under threat, searching for some species he has always wanted to see such as wryneck, dotterel and barred warbler.

Jon started watching birds when he was 14 years old and so he can chart changes over 50 years, at a time when the countryside has seemingly emptied and in many ways fallen silent. But despite the many reasons for concern, he chooses, still, to be a celebrant of birds and their beauties, in the hope that this will accelerate the care we take of our feathered friends.

'Jon Gower could write about the inside of an empty box and make it a place of wonder. Apply that talent to a splendid subject and you get something very special indeed. From the kittiwakes and whistling Geordie builders of Newcastle to the farmers and great bustards of Salisbury Plain, Birdland is about birds and the bird-people and places of Britain. It is part memoir, part nonfiction, part plea and entirely enthralling...This book, in its maturity, observation, wonder, and reflective gratefulness, is special. For its pause and for its purpose.'

Nation Cymru