Birder on Berry Lane

This was a very enjoyable book. I loved how the author took me each month through, with what birds appear and how nature shows up year-round and if we look we can see what each month has to offer in regards to the wildlife around us.

Enjoyed this book. I love birds and enjoy watching them. Recommend this book to bird lovers. I received an arc from the publisher and Netgalley and this is my unbiased review.

I really enjoyed my time with this one. The title basically tells you what's inside: a birder talking about his experiences watching birds where he lives on Berry Lane. I adore nature writing like this, and I love bird-watching myself, so to read about someone living in New England talking about the birds there was just a wonderful and calming experience for me. Tougias also talks about the mating, migration, and nest-building habits of many of the birds, and desribes their preferred diets, too, but this book never comes across as being overly scientific or dry, just educational whilst still being enjoyable.
The tone of this book is gentle, and you can really feel the author's love of birds and bird-watching. I loved how he introduced a little bit of his own life into everything, and talked about his past and his daughter a little, too. When that human element is introduced into nature writing, I find myself feeling really absorbed in the story and adore being carried along so much that the book is often over before I'm ready. I will say that occasionally the flashbacks came really suddenly and I had a bit of trouble keeping up with whether it was current day or some other time - this may have been an issue with the eARC I was reading, though, as the formatting was a little wonky.
Finally, I just wanted to mention the illustrations by Mark Szantyr - they are lovely, and add so much to the reading experience. It was really lovely getting something to look at when Robert Tougias was speaking on a specific bird - living in Australia, I am not super familiar with a lot of the brids that Tougias was writing about, so the pictures helped a lot.

Overall this is a quiet, lovely little book. I may have to get a physical copy when it comes out to reread - I think with the formatting problems fixed it could be a gem of a book.

I really like reading about nature (experiencing it is another matter) so when I saw this book on NetGalley, I really wanted to read it. Unfortunately for Birder on Berry Lane, I read it after I had read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (the reviews are far apart because I didn’t want to post this so far before the publish date but don’t be fooled!)

Birder on Berry Lane is a year-long exploration and love song to the birds that visit Robert Tougias’s house on Berry Lane in Connecticut. As Tougias puts it in the introduction, this book is “an account of my awareness – seeing, thinking about, and appreciating the living habitat, nature, and most specifically birds going about their business.” In a way, it’s similar to Dillard’s aim of seeing, but with the focus aimed straight at our feathered friends.

But it would be a mistake to think that Birder on Berry Lane is similar to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. They might both be about nature around the author’s home, but in style they couldn’t be more different. Dillard looks to see nature in new and unfamiliar eyes, to search for the “tree with lights in it”. Tougias is writing to show us about the beauty and wonder of birds to raise our awareness of them.

As such, Birder on Berry Lane feels like a quieter book, but that doesn’t mean that it’s without its charms. I learnt a lot about the birds in Connecticut while reading and for a moment, wanted to set up a bird feeder. But living in a HDB makes that fairly difficult so I abandoned that idea pretty quickly.

The book also comes with drawings of birds, which add to its quiet charm. Because the appearance of birds tend to be seasonal (at least, that’s what it appears to be for me), Tougias is able to focus on one or two birds for each month and intersperse his musings with drawings of them.

Overall, this is a quiet and charming book about birds. I’ve never really thought about them – except when that one annoying bird wakes me up (Singaporeans do you feel me?) – but I found a new appreciation for these small creatures after reading this.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley but the thoughts in this review are my own.

This book, like birdwatching itself, requires one to slow down and take in what is being presented. It delivers exactly what it promises, a year of observation by a bird watcher, but it is also a bit more than that. The reader is also treated to notes on bird behavior: preferred foods, mating rituals, nesting, etc. What I was left with was a respect and admiration for Tougias's quiet passion and insightful knowledge.

This is a book written by a dedicated birder that will fill a spot on my shelf that I did not know was missing. Robert Tougias shares his experiences of watching birds....and life....from his porch and/or windows. The thrill of seeing these harbingers of seasons as they move thousands of miles with no visible guides....no google maps for them....is one of nature's wonders. Sharing the experiences with others is one of the best feelings. It brings a community of diverse people together with only one goal, enjoying the show Mother Nature has provided.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. As a bird watcher, I just loved this book and it is going to be a great gift for many other bird watchers. So much information shared in such a great way, I just loved it.

While convalescing over this past winter, I read this book and found it enchanting! I am a backyard birder and so enjoy seeing the rich varieties of birds and animals that visit my feeding stations. I only have a patch of a yard, but I make the most of what I have to entice critters to stop by for a drink or bite. It's funny how after a while one can really tell the difference between regular visitors! I did enjoy reading Mr. Tougias account of birds in his backyard. Lovely! It would make a great gift for someone, most especially if they live in the New England area.