Excerpt from Bird School by Adam Nicolson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Nick Walsh, a joiner just down the road in Frant, agreed to make the little building with an oak frame and to fit it out with windows, nest boxes, benches and shutters. Colin Pilbeam, who manages the farm at Perch Hill, hired a digger and with Richard Lambden dug the trenches, screwed in the steel groundscrews and poured the foundations.

Nick arranged for a woodman down the road to make the chestnut hurdles for the walls. And then slowly over the autumn and early winter, Nick and his friend Gary Parker hammered and hauled together the wonderful structure. By January, the woodburner had been installed. The benches were finished. Sarah had given me a set of bird pictures for the sloping roofs inside the shed and I arranged a network of wires and pulleys in the trees from which to hang the feeders. The birdhouse was ready for the world to come.

Excerpted from Bird School by Adam Nicolson. Copyright © 2025 by Adam Nicolson. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.