Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for a kindle version of this book!

Growing up, Gwendolen (Len) Howard has a love of music and birds. She joins an orchestra as a violinist in London, where she lives for several years, but gradually tires of city life.

She then moves to the countryside in Sussex and buys ‘Bird Cottage’ where she decides to study the birds. She goes on to have many articles printed and a couple of books published on her studies and observations.

This delightful book is a fictional take on Len Howard’s life, as apparently not much is known about her life. If you’re a bird nerd like me, you will love the sections in the book that describe their habits and interactions with both Len and each other. These sections are interwoven with snapshots of time during Len’s life.

This is a beautiful, although somewhat melancholy book that I really enjoyed. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 from me!

The book covers when Len was a little girl in a Wales, then a violinist in London, and then she moves to a small cottage in Sussex. Interesting view of her love of music and birds. Her observations and point of view is intriguing and if you love nature you will love reading her story. The only thing I disliked was the jumping back and forth so much. Much prefer a straightforward timeline in stories. Still though, highly recommend this book.

What a beautifully written book! I was hooked on this book from the first page. It was a wonderful story and the author brought the book to life with her words. If you like birds, you will love this book. Thank you Pushkin Press via NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

First off I thought this was a work of fiction, I had no idea Len was a real person. Now I must read all of her writings and books.

This reads like a lovely piece of fiction, and it is in part a fictionalized story about the life of Len Howard. The author takes some historical fact and works up a fine tale. I think I highlighted about 2/3 of the book. It reads wonderfully.

Admittedly at first there was a bit of shock that was unexpected, the story is not for the faint hearted as some of the bird tales are not happy ending stories. Parts of this just broke my heart.

Review Eva Meijer. Bird Cottage Pushkin Press

Translated from the Dutch by Antoinette Fawcett

The title of the book is taken from the name of a house in Sussex in which the naturalist Len (Gwendolen) Howard lived and wrote from 1938. Howard wrote books on birds, based on years of living with them closely observing their behaviours, Meijer’s work is partly fictional, partly biographical based on Howard’s letters.

Born in the early years of the 20th century to a poet father and depressed mother Howard gave up an early career as a violinist and the possibility of marriage in order to live alone and write about her birds.

This imagining of her life brings to light her struggles to be taken seriously as a naturalist.

Konrad Lorenz’s book in which he describes how he lives with all kinds of animals, is treated far more seriously that mine, probably because he has proper qualifications, writes scientific articles, is a man. Yet his observations are less original than mine. Moreover the birds have freely chosen to live with me whereas Lorenz rears his and so influences their behaviour.

The factual elements of the book are Interesting for observations on animal behaviour such as:

“Darwin’s work on animal intelligence, for example, is regarded as unscientific because it is primarily based on anecdotal evidence. Behaviourism, however, does not properly take account of the fact that many animals behave differently in captivity than when they are free.”

Yet I found some of the dialogue slow moving and unconvincing which may be a result of translation.

“Cook rings the bell. Tea is ready. I go upstairs to put away my violin. Mike is singing in the garden. Ta-da-da, tada.”

There’s not much sense of the history against which the story is set - a brief mention of some suffragettes and force feeding “it must be dreadful”. Gwen recognises a soldier as “one of the chaps Kingsley used to play tennis with”. The second world war gets barely a mention.

Gwen’s character comes across as completely self-absorbed, out of touch with her family -she fails to attend her own father’s funeral – and with the momentous events that shook the world through the first half of the twentieth century. She’s not the most empathetic of characters but obviously the birds like her. I understand that the intention may have been to show that this is what it took to live life on your own terms for a woman. But I do not know if this is the case – I felt I did not know the character any better by the end of the book than at the beginning.

A lovely book for bird lovers and anyone who enjoys a gentle read. The story of Len;who gives up being a professional musician to study birds in a Sussex
cottage, is beautifuly written and compelling. Thoroughly recommended.

Meijer has created a beautifully written imagining of the early life that led to the almost entire (self imposed) isolation of a woman whose research into birds was all consuming. The descriptions are lush and vivid.

There is something melancholy and almost sterile in Gwendolyn dealings with humanity. Shying away from love and affection “Len “ is almost emotionless about human toils and Troubles but caters to every need of the birds in her surrounds. There is an eccentricity and rigidness to the routines that made me idly wonder whether she may have been on the Asperger s spectrum.

Engaging but not a joyous read.

Gwendolen Howard moved from London to Sussex in February 1938. Disenchanted with London life, she left a good career as a violinist to pursue another passion - that of observing birds. Here she lived the rest of her life, in relative solitude, interacting with the garden birds and studying their behaviours.
This is a fictionalised account of a real person. What grabbed my attention from the beginning was the account of her interactions with the birds.
Interspersed with this was the back story Gwendolen's life in London which I didn't find particularly believable. Apparently she had not intention of getting married and was far too emancipating to be tied down to one man and was not going to waste herself on marriage and children. Maybe she did feel that way, but I wasn't really convinced and to be honest, not really interested.
What fascinated me was the rural life, the birds, the interaction. Was it true that she taught a bird to count? Amazing! When the author was focusing on Gwendolen's studies I was enthralled and enchanted. I loved these parts and would have loved it if the whole book had been about this.

This is one of those books where you will love it or say "not for me". I thought it would be a book perhaps about an elderly lady raising birds, watching them and maybe neighbors complaining, etc. But, that not the way the story goes. This book is great for those learning the ways and lives of birds, where they come from, how they care for their young, etc. Then, part of the book does deal with a lady that keeps birds, talks to them, etc. I skimmed the pages of true information, then tried to get into the story line but, at times, did not know if it was a bird or a human talking. I had to give it up, but it could be a great book for the right person. I want to thank Net Galley for giving me the chance to read it.

Note: I received an advanced readers' copy in exchange for my honest review of this book!

I really enjoyed this book. If you need a lovely and calming book to read before you go to bed, then please buy this book. I really enjoy a slow read covering nature lovers and this fits the bill perfectly. I enjoyed the slow pace of this book and it really got quite emotional at points. Overall, what a lovely and wonderful read that I fully recommend! This book will not be for everyone, but if nature books are your thing, then BUY IT!

A must read for bird lovers.

This gorgeous novel tells the story of Len Howard, the incredible woman who defied convention and chose to dedicate much of her life to her studies at Bird Cottage, where she forms fascinating interspecies bonds with the local avians.

Though the book is technically fiction, Meijer does a wonderful job of blending research on the life of Howard with compelling fiction to round out the novel.

The book will break your heart a bit, multiple times throughout the narrative and particularly at the end, but it’s well worth it for the compelling insight into Howard, her avian companions, and the enthralling ways in which they interact and communicate with one another.

And for those who fret about these things (as I do), the translation of the novel into English is wonderfully done.

This was a fascinating story. Len Howard was an interesting woman living an interesting life anyway - a bohemian existence, not tied down by any man, working as a violinist in an orchestra. She gave it all up to live alone, to observe wild birds (mainly great tits), and to befriend them. She battled developers, the council, and the army to keep her hedges wild and her birds safe. She was obviously a popular wildlife writer, back in the day.

Her observations of birds are presented here, and you really get a feel for her deep, deep bond with them, and her unique understanding of them. She took the study of bird behaviour out of the laboratory - still controversial, I would imagine. She was completely eccentric, and utterly focussed on the needs of the birds, rather than her own. The stories of her tramping through a winter landscape during the war to try and find extra butter for her birds is startlingly odd.

It's gently written, but utterly absorbing.

Thank you NetGalley, for allowing me to read this in exchange for a review.

Review
This is such a lovely, lovely book. I enjoyed it very much. There were highs and lows and some aspects made me feel really quite emotional. It’s a biography, but told as a story and is based on true facts.

Gwendolen (Len) Howard grows up in an outgoing and sociable family that host frequent soirées. At these events, Len would give piano and violin recitals but, desperate to leave home in Wales, she moves to London to become a professional violinist in an orchestra.

Initially, she enjoys London-life and performing, but as the years roll by, she longs for solitude and the company of the little birds that she and her father would often rescue.

Len learns that her father has died and that she is to inherit a quarter share of his estate. This allows her to leave the orchestra and her rented London room and to buy a place of her own in Ditchling, East Sussex. It is perfect for Len to carry out her research on birds. She has the perfect garden and allows them to live in her home.

Len studies the birds, mainly Great Tits, closely. She documents their habits and even teaches one in particular to count. She devotes her life to her research, writing articles and books on her findings and funny stories on the various individual characters and their different personalities. Two particular Great Tits found a place in her heart - Star and her mate Baldhead.

Len lived alone but as a young girl, had fallen in love with family-friend Paul whilst still living in Wales. I believe that she was also attracted to his sister Patricia, though I may have misinterpreted this.

The ending was very sad, to learn that Bird Cottage had been left to the Sussex Naturalists’ Trust on the promise that they would make the house a bird sanctuary. But in fact they sold the house and land and the new occupiers cut down all but one of the trees in the garden. Gone was the relatively safe haven and home to the birds.

I learned so much about Great Tits from reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who has a love of nature and who wants a nice gentle read on life as it used to be.

I rate this book 5 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thanks
Thank you to the author Eva Meyer and publishers Pushkin Press for an advanced copy of this ebook in exchange for an independent review.

I loved this book and read it in two sittings .Len Howard's love of the natural world, especially birds, shines through. Born in 1894 Len became interested in nature through her father. She gave up her career as a professional violinist to buy a small plot of land and Bird Cottage in Sussex where she studied the birds and lived an almost reclusive life. This book is a joy to read and I would highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read this book.

Bird Cottage is a quaint look into the life of a lonely, somewhat introverted woman who prefers to spend most of her days studying and writing about the birds around her secluded home in the woods. she is very dedicated and devoted to both the birds and her studies of them and Chase is more than one person from her yard so that they will not be disturbed. If you absolutely love birds then you would probably give this book 4 stars, but otherwise I would give this book 3 stars.

Fascinating book, very well written and well-researched. If you enjoy birds and bird watching, and/or have an affinity for nature and wildlife, you’ll enjoy this book!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Bird Cottage by author Eva Meijer is written about the experiences of Gwendolen Howard (1894 - 5 January 1973) or Len Howard as her pseudonym. Being a bird-watcher myself, this book was very interesting. Eva Meijer used publications and notes from various sources to compile the story about the young Len while she lived with her artistic parents and her adult years as she played violin in the symphony during her London years. At about age 40, Len becomes disappointed in life and decides to leave her career in music and live a solitary life in Ditchling and study the backyard birds she loved. The interaction she developed with the wild birds is amazing. She became so engrossed with observing the birds behaviors, songs, calls, and nesting habits until it seems she became a recluse and withdrew from public other than her neighbor and the agents she used for publishing her books. Len did write two best-sellers based on her notes of observations and living with the birds. I am curious about the notations in Len's writings about the time shortly after Paul left. Bird Cottage is well written, interesting and the way it ended was so appropriate for the character.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I loved this.

As a family we've started feeding the local birds more regularly and are starting to get regular visitors they we recognise. Now I want to go all out!

The gaps between intertwined stories of her human and bird life were just right. I devoured this book, trying to steal a chapter here and there when I could.

This novel fictionalizes and portrays Howard's life through an exploration of her childhood, of her successful career as a violinist and throught the examination of what led her to devote her later years to her passion of birds. Sincere, whimsical, thoroughly researched and, thus, solidly written novel that centers around the ethics of care.

First off the cover is lovely, I'm so happy to say the story inside is too!! While I love feeding and watching birds myself, I was unsure how interesting a book about it would be. It was actually very fascinating, quirky and moving. I enjoyed it completely and think a wide variety of my reader friends would like it too.