Waiting for the Albino Dunnock

Get in the xigxag app
Already purchased

Click to open directly in the xigxag app.

This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book. Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }} Send as a gift
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Written by a beginner-birdwatcher with the freshness and passion of a convert, WAITING FOR THE ALBINO DUNNOCK explores the world of birds through the seasons of a single year. It describes encounters with particular birds in the landscapes of East Anglia where the author is rooted. Occasional journeys farther afield take the reader to truly wild places in the Outer Hebrides and Eastern Europe. Yet the ordinary experience of birdwatching is also far more than just that. The beauty of birds has the power to change lives, as it did the author's, and as in the case of the all-but-legendary snow leopard, it is more about the search than the result.

Personal and elegiac in tone, the writing is an unusual combination of prose poems based on the actual experience of seeing a specific bird for the first time, woven with elements of science and wisdom traditions, ornithology (and its punning counterpart ornitheology), mythology and philosophy, taxonomy and history, literature and folklore, conveying the wider picture of what it means to be human in relationship to nature. WAITING FOR THE ALBINO DUNNOCK explores the degree to which wildness is embedded in the human psyche and how beauty is central to our mental and emotional wellbeing, while highlighting the careless damage we are inflicting on the natural world.

Read by Jane Whittenshaw

(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group

Critics Review

A beautiful book

Tim Birkhead, author of BIRD SENSE

Glorious, beautifully written pilgrimage into the soaring world of birds … The prose is sublime, and so is the intelligence behind it

DAILY MAIL

Rare, charming and unforgettable … Her prose has the clarity, poise, precision and transcendent beauty of someone who was brought up reading the classics and knows the joy of finding the right words. Every sentence is perfect

THE OLDIE

Beautifully written

CHOICE magazine

[Richardson] writes…with a poetic lyricism

SUNDAY EXPRESS

This exquisite depiction of bird-watching as personal pilgrimage is written with passion, poetry and the
freshness of a newcomer: ‘the real voyage of discovery consists in…seeing with new eyes’

THE LADY

Richardson is both a looker and a see-er and her open-eyed delight in the beauty around her has an infectious quality enhanced by exquisite writing

BBC COUNTRYFILE

[Richardson’s] lyrical memoir of a year of birdwatching in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Greece is a life-enhancing record of birds (and books).

DAILY MAIL

More from the same

Narrator

About xigxag

Enjoy the best audiobooks on xigxag, an innovative, user-friendly audiobook platform that makes it easy to find, purchase, and enjoy your favorite books in audio format. xigxag’s flexible pricing model offers bestselling audiobooks for less – affordable prices and the best audiobook deals with no subscription required.  Give the perfect gift with our audiobook gift cards and in-app audiobook gifting options.

 

xigxag’s commitment to sustainability and ethical practices ensures a guilt-free listening experience from an exceptional digital book platform – an exciting alternative to big tech.  Enjoy audiobooks from the only B Corp certified UK audiobook service and a leader in audiobook innovation.

 

Search effortlessly, read honest audiobook reviews evaluating both the book and the narration, and discover hidden gems.  Download or stream top audiobook titles anytime, anywhere and get the best possible listening experience on the UK’s best independent audiobook app.  Experience the future of audiobooks today.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.