Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to British Birds

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The multi-instrumentalist from The Doves features in The Bird Effect, a film about how birds affect and inspire people. Not sure if the band name came before or after the passion for our feathered friends, but it’s an apt one anyway! Bill Bailey

Walking into Bill Bailey’s studio feels a bit like walking into Bill Bailey’s mind. It occupies the ground floor of a townhouse in Hammersmith, the kind of residential building where you would expect to find a young family, rather than the nerve centre of one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers. Weirdly I didn't watch the match because I was at the zookeeper's symposium. We were out on the terrace of the Palace of Westminster, watching a cormorant eating an eel –an extraordinary sight.It was all very nice and civilised butevery time England scored you could hear the muffled cry somewhere."The guitarist for British Sea Power contributed to the Big Garden Birdwatch blog run by the Guardianin 2009, although he didn’t have much joy, writing “ It’s drizzling in Brighton, and there’s not alot of action in my tiny city garden at the moment. I regularly put bread, meal worms and table mix out, so i’m hoping there will be a few hungry regulars braving the rain.” Prince Philip I think they stay hidden unless you attempt to rescue a goose and then they springinto action, 'right, take him down'." When watching Bill perform live I’ve always thought he was very birdlike, he always seems wide-eyed and a bit twitchy. I think he has been influenced by his years of bird watching and it’s nice to hear that when on tour he always finds time to have a look around to see what he can spot.

There are times I guess,when you are not feeling funny and you have to be funny, it's part of the job. You just have to compartmentalise." I think Keir was up against a lot of baggage from the Corbyn era and he had to deal with that to make Labour electable. I think he’s done that. If there was an election he would win and he’d make an effective leader. Earl of Whimsy is very much about delving into a bit of English history, partly because, I think, for every comic in Britain the last two years have been quite a torrid time after Brexit... We're still in a state of chaos, limbo.Throw into that mix Trump and it's a strange time. In a way what I have done is retreat to some nostalgia, looking at what's great and not great... Britain'sfractious relationship with the rest of the world."Jarvis (of Pulp fame, of course) has worked on an album for the National Trust, sung about trees and written a song called “The Birds in Your Garden” on the album We Love Life, and generally seems like the sort of lefty, arty, eccentric bloke who would enjoy birding. Alex Zane, Jeff Green and Jayne Middlemiss The thing is we have a lot of animals in the house, lots and lots. It's gotten a bit out of hand, we found mates for some of them –pals –and now we have dozens and dozens of the things," he says. Some people can’t cope with it,” he adds. “I’ve seen that. Family members, friends. They find it too much to bear. And it is. Of course it is.”

As this interview with his chauffeur shows, Einstein was fond of a morning trip to go birdwatching, although he could be left him in tears, due to the beauty of the Mozart he would play on his violin on some occasions. There are a number of biographies that also point to Einstein being a keen bird fan. Franklin D. Roosevelt This book has two things in its favour. Firstly, it is about birds and clearly I am increasingly drawn to these. Secondly, it is by Bill Bailey who has the honour of being one of very few stand up comedians who can make me laugh. I’m a miserable person, really, but both Bill Bailey and Ross Noble can reduce me to tears of laughter. I don't know why I mention Ross Noble when the book is written solely by Bill Bailey. Music was his first love. As a child, Bailey discovered he had perfect pitch. He played piano at home and studied music at school and at the London College of Music. The US National Book Award winning novelist has written a number of birding related articles for The New Yorker, although this writer seems to be annoyed that he is the ‘public face of birding’ in their opinion. Bill Oddieilmselgelt raamatu valisin lindude, mitte autori pärast, aga eks mind ahvatles küll veidi idee linnumäärajast, mille on kirjutanud niisama linnuhuviline, mitte ornitoloog. lootsin, et asju ei aeta liiga keeruliseks, ja need lootused täitusid täiega. linde oli raamatusse valitud selle järgi, keda Bailey ise näinud on ja kes talle meeldivad, ja neid polnud liiga palju. juurde oli ka kirjutatud... huvitavaid asju. näiteks et haigur lõpetas Bailey tiigist kalade püüdmise siis, kui tiigi kõrvale paigutati krokodilli kuju. või et piiritaja poja esimene lend pesast välja on kohe lõunamaale, ei ole mingit kodu ümber harjutamist. It’s called a theremin and has been most famously used in 1950s science-fiction films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still. Bill is one of the few modern representatives of the instrument, and has presented a Radio 4 show called “Good Vibrations: The Story of the Theremin”, and written an article on the subject for the Guardian. Walking helped them to open up to each other. “When you’re talking to someone on a walk you’re facing the same way,” Bailey says. “Strolling along, chatting about difficult subjects, is easier than having a sit-down chat about it.” He adds that men are especially bad at talking about serious subjects. “I remember a friend asked to speak about getting divorced. We spoke about art, football, music, everything, then right at the end I asked how things were with his wife and he said ‘not good actually’ and got a taxi.” Together, as Bailey recalls, they spent many nights drinking cider and listening to The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen play at a nightclub in Bath. Most people know Bill Bailey for his amazing performances where he expertly mixes comedy and music with a large dollop of zaniness, or his appearances on various panel games. What most people don’t know is that he loves all things about the natural world and is a massive fan of birds in particular. For this book, he has taken 51 of his favourite birds, from the generally unloved pigeons and herring gulls to the tiny wrens, deadly peregrines and the cheeky corvid family. Each of the mini-chapters on birds has facts and details of where to find them or in the case of the bittern, where you can go and look and generally fail to see them.