‘Well worth a read . . . hits many sweet notes’
– Mark Avery, author of Remarkable Birds and Inglorious: Conflict in the Uplands
‘A delightful meditation on the wonders of nature’s best free show – birdsong – and how it has seeped into our culture through the ages’
– Stephen Moss, author of Wild Hares and Hummingbirds and Wild Kingdom
‘Between the fibrillating throats of birds and the human mind lies an extraordinary landscape, a place created by the intersection of culture, biology, and literature. Richard Smyth is a brilliant, insightful, and witty guide in this fascinating terrain’
– David George Haskell, author of The Songs of Trees and the Pulitzer finalist, The Forest Unseen. Professor of Biology, University of the South
‘This is a delightful book that does exactly what it says on the cover: it plays a sweet wild note. If you are already tuned in to bird song you will learn a lot more and if you aren’t you will want to be. Reading it honestly seems to have improved my (ornithological) listening and hearing as well as cheering my heart’
– Sara Maitland, author of Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of Our Forests and Fairytales