Originally appearing at: Booklist
Woolfson chronicles her family’s years of raising multiple wild and captive-bred birds in this truly delightful title. As she artfully blends natural history and memoir, she channels great authors from Gerald Durrell to Bernd Heinrich. There is no small amount of droll hilarity while writing about her daughters (one believed in “full civil rights to all birds”) and observing a variety of bird behaviors. Because Woolfson has rescued several members of the Corvus genus—which includes rooks, crows, magpies, and ravens—she ruminates on the mythology of these fabled birds, comparing long-held beliefs and prejudices with her own very different experiences. In writing about family members Chicken the rook and talking magpie Spike, along with their avian cohorts (including a coterie of doves housed in the garden), Woolfson brings readers comfortably into her multispecies home, and while not anthropomorphizing the animals (a subject she does address), her deep affection for them comes through. This impressive resource has such a deep well of references (Lord Byron, Truman Capote, Rachel Carson, and numerous scientists and naturalists), it serves as the widest lens imaginable, capturing social, scientific, and cultural interaction between humans and birds. In all, a wonderful book.
