Birdsong

This time every year, the musician and song collector Sam Lee brings together a group of people to head in the Sussex woods to listen to the nightingales sing, and to sing along with them. This year, Sam had to go alone to sing with the nightingales, but in a special broadcast to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day he was joined remotely by poets and musicians to celebrate their call. You can see the broadcast here

The poet Jen Hadfield is in lockdown away from her beloved Shetland. Her recent writing revolves around trying to come to terms with her relatively fortunate situation, which is nonetheless tinged with homesickness, and a longing for the birds of Shetland, particularly the arctic terns. Jen Hadfield’s books include her TS Eliot prize winning collection ‘The Nigh-No Place’ and ‘Byssus’.

Several years ago, despite being a birdwatcher, Richard Smyth realised he knew very little about birdsong and decided to find out more. ‘A Sweet, Wild Note’ is his exploration into the sounds birds make, and the ways in which humans have interpreted them. His latest book ‘An Indifference of Birds’, another reminder that birds frequently resist the human categories we try to put them in, is published by Uniform Books.