Birds as Individuals

Enter the secret lives of Britain's ordinary garden birds and 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 neighbors, with some sleeping in her bedroom and many flitting in and out all day long.

This is the book she wrote about the birds – a study not just of their behavior but their individual personalities. We learn about their intelligence, emotional lives, and characters, their capacity for play and humor, the range of their song, their likes and dislikes, and their bond with Len.

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.

‘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

Len Howard (1894-1973) was a British naturalist and musician best known for her studies of birds, published as Birds as Individuals (1952) and Living with Birds (1956).

In her early life, Howard pursued a career in music in London, giving music lessons, organizing concerts for the children of the poor and playing the viola professionally in an orchestra under Malcolm Sargent. In 1938, she purchased a plot of land outside the village of Ditchling, Sussex, and built the house she called Bird Cottage. There she developed an intimate and unusual relationship with the wild birds in the area, providing food (including her own war rations), chasing away predators, tending to damaged nests, and allowing the birds to fly and roost throughout her home. Her musical training gave her a unique insight into the diverse character of birdsong. Howard died at Bird Cottage in 1973.