Nightingales in November: A Year in the Lives of Twelve British Birds

by Mike Dilger

Have you ever wondered what 'our' birds get up to when they're not pinching our peanuts, pilfering our pyracantha berries or nesting under the eaves of our homes? The One Show 's natural history star Mike Dilger tells us the answers in Nightingales in November.

This brilliant almanac tells the very different personal and annual stories of twelve well-known birds we deign to call 'British'. Through a lyrical narrative, Nightingales in November showcases amazing avian facts gleaned over decades by birdwatchers, ringers, nest recorders and migration recorders. The perfect 'dip-into' book, any enquiring naturalist will be able to find out such facts as where British-breeding swallows spend Christmas Day, when to look out for juvenile tawny owls, or when is the best date in the calendar to listen out for nightingales.

By using a combination of cutting-edge satellite technology and millions of ringing records, Nightingales in November reveals the mysteries of migration, tracking the regular movements of, for example, cuckoos for the eight months they're not in the UK, or divulging why not all robins are the 'stay-at-home' territorial types we once imagined.

Illustrated throughout by Darren Woodhead, the birds featured include a rich mix of resident birds, summer visitors, winter visitors and passage migrants. Nightingales in November is a great read for anyone with a fondness for British birds.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Birds, Natural History

368 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 2016

Reviews

[Kelly Furniss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this for my winter choice for my bookclub after seeing Stephen Moss pick it as one of his five favourite winter nature books. The book picks twelve different species of birds and their lives are documented through the year. Behaviours & appearance etc are all analysed. I found it a interesting read.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

We don’t get many different species of birds in our garden, mostly sparrows, the odd blue tit, magpies, lots of pigeons and sometimes doves. I have seen herons on the house behind, and every now and again we glimpse goldfinches and we even had a pair of mallards once! It is a bit of a mix, but mostly we leave them to get on with it. Move away from the houses around and suddenly there are far more birds around, buzzards and the occasional kite wheeling overhead and magnificent swift scything through the air in the height of summer.

Some of what we consider our native birds are actually visitors. Some of them fly here for what we laughingly call our summer before heading vast distances to much warmer climes during our grey winters. In this book Dilger has selected twelve of our well-known birds, the Peregrine, the Blue Tit, Tawny Owl, Robin, Kingfisher as well as some of the summer and winter visitors that we have, the Waxwing, the Puffin, the Lapwing, Bewick’s Swan, the Swallow, the Cuckoo and the bird that the book is named after, the Nightingale.

Each chapter covers a month and each of the birds has a short essay telling us the sorts of things that they would be typically doing at that time of year. In January, we read about the Bewick’s Swan who are overwintering as it is much warmer than their summer haunt of the Siberian tundra. Kingfishers are keeping a low profile near the rivers and Tawny Owls starting to defend their territory. In the same month, thousands of miles away in South Africa the swallows flit catching insects around the big game.

By the middle of the year, the days are long, and most of the birds mentioned have bred and are carrying out the thankless task of feeding their young, the lapwings are fairly self-sufficient when they hatch, the kingfishers are just starting to force their first brood out to fend for themselves and the Puffin’s egg is still being incubated. The Peregrine’s chicks are just starting to flex their flight muscles and take to the air.

As the winter closes in the summer visitors will be long gone, the chicks of the cuckoos having managed to follow the parent they have never seen back to Africa, the blue tits are emptying the nuts from your feeder and the robin’s songs have returned and the nightingale is enjoying the warmth of tropical Senegal.

In all these multiple timelines are vast numbers of facts and details, stories and anecdotes about each of the birds and it makes for fascinating reading, especially about those that migrate and how the detective work has found their routes to and from the UK. I personally I would have preferred a separate timeline for each bird through their year, rather than month by month, as I would occasionally have flick back to see what they were up to in the previous chapter. That is only a minor thing though as otherwise, it is a good concept to show how each of these birds live their own separate and intertwined lives. I did love the little sketches of each bird and the beginning of each chapter/month. 3.5 stars

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spotted this book in Waterstones MK whilst waiting for Mr D to choose a book. It gives the annual stories of 12 well known ‘British’ birds. I was drawn to it as almost every day we are extremely fortunate to see a kingfisher along the canal and know very little about them.

The stories are fascinating. How amazing that cuckoo’s spend only 6 weeks here before leaving their offspring and buggering off to the Congo. That kingfisher couples have separate territories.

These birds are not troubled by Brexit or country boundaries. Many of them travel for thousands of miles every year to find the right conditions.

I have finished January and wait with anticipation to discover what my new feathered friends get up to in February.

[Gwenaelle Vandendriessche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winter is coming...
In this book, you have invaders from the North, fights for territory, big journeys, foster parents, cheating, murder, spies... You just don't have dragons, but birds. Which makes it even better, because it's not fiction. Really, the author makes you live one year through the eyes of those 12 bird species (Nightingales, Cuckoos, Swallows, Robins, Blue Tits, Lapwings, Kingfishers, Puffins, Tawny Owls, Peregrines and the invaders from the North: Bewick's Swans and Waxwings) and it's a swirl of challenges. Everything is about choosing the right time and mistakes can have very hard consequences. This is so fascinating and interesting!

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

lovely and original book, lots of later afternoon and dusk encounters marked this as special

[Flint · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love reading about wildlife, especially birds.

But something about this book... it's too dry. There is no poetic licence, which even non-fictional books need; otherwise, it just doesn't connect with me.

Sure, it's packed with a lot of information, but it's useless to me as I can't remember anything due to the tedious nature of how it is written, and maybe it's a format problem, too. It could just be my neurodivergent brain and attention difficulties.

I will say that this book may be better as something you dip into every month to keep up with where the 12 bird species are in real-time. Having borrowed this from the library, I don't have the luxury to try it, though, and my first attempt at reading this like any other book, has soured any chance I might buy it.

[Matt Fallaize · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating, meticulously researched and full of interest. The central conceit (tracking what a small selection of bird species are doing at any one point in the year) is a great idea, and I left the book feeling illuminated and with a greater understanding, Dilger's an excellent, clear communicator. Let down slightly by a mildly aggravating prose style (for my tastes), overuse of inverted commas for phrases which are pretty workaday and a mild tendency to repeat itself. The book's episodic nature means that occasionally the same thing seems to repeat (I understood about the tracking of the Nightingales the first time round, I didn't need telling about it again)

[Rob Sedgwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book that looks at the lives of twelve "British" species of birds. It is organised month by month rather than bird by bird so the narrative jumps between species within the early/mid/late parts of the month. This does make it slightly disjointed but makes it easier to contrast the different "strategies" of each species.

The author has picked 12 species, with 2 very familiar to anyone looking out the window (blue tit and robin) to lesser-known kinds. Some of them I have never personally seen.

I followed up reading this book by watching a few short videos on Youtube. It really is a fascinating subject.

[Rowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF, although in a different mood I might have. This should have been an interesting book, but the way it was organised chronologically through the year made it bitty and disconnected. There would be a few paragraphs about swallows in Africa getting ready to migrate north, then we’d go away and talk about other birds, then a few pages later we’d be back to the swallows again. Repeat for twelve birds, and I lost the will to keep reading.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a professional ecologist and enthusiastic birder, I found plenty to learn in Dilger's fascinating book on the lifecycle of twelve British bird species. He includes details of the most recent research being carried out on his chosen subjects, particularly interesting is the advances in tracking migratory birds using geolocation technologies.

I felt the format restricted the author at times which made some sections repetitive, particularly in the later months. Overall, I enjoyed the book and learned a great deal.

[Charlotte FitzGerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm enjoying this book so much, I dip into it at bedtime, it's like a lullaby. I'm learning about the 'everyday' birds I see and hear in the UK (some of whom are not as everyday as we think, incidentally). I try to read it according to the relevant month, so I'm taking my time, but every encounter with this true story is magical. Recommendable to anyone.

[Emmapettitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Packed full with information told in a very conversational style.

[Nicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I know nothing of birds so found it engrossing. I read the book in installments to match the months. Hence, the reason why it took a year to read. Loved finding out about perigwins, tawny owls, the robin and cuckoos.