Be More Bird - by Candida Meyrick (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"A small masterpiece, written with heart, self-belief and wisdom. Wonderful!"--Paul Theroux

"A moving account of how the sport of falconry helped [the author] navigate life as a mother and writer...Rich in description and insight, this soars."--Publishers Weekly

In this exhilarating debut memoir, a woman's extraordinary bond with her hawk imparts life lessons about resilience, freedom, and self-discovery.

Isolated in the British countryside with her young family during 2020, writer Candida Meyrick makes the leap to adopt a twelve-week-old Harris's hawk named Sophia Houdini Whitewing--aka Bird. Over the following months, she trains Bird to soar, hunt, and dazzle, and as Bird masters the sky, Candida is swept into a new way of living: one that centers courage and self-discovery. Through her time with Bird, Candida finds lessons for herself--to experience life fully, to be daring, to let go, and try new things--as well as lessons in parenting both Bird and her own children.

Working with her Harris's hawk over the following years reveals a new world: confronting mortality daily, moving through a liminal landscape, part sky-, part earth-bound. Every day's hunting brings a new life-lesson. Bird opens up a way of being that is everything Candida most longs to be: courageous, compassionate, independent, full of joy--free as a bird.

Through daily adventures across field and woodland, through bog and briar, Candida comes to realise that Bird is showing her the way, guiding her soul, revealing truths about her life that would otherwise have remained hidden.

Set against the untamed beauty of remote and rustic Welsh and English forests, fields, hedgerows, and seashore, Candida's evocative story charts the subtle, profound bond between human and hawk--a relationship that bridges species, cultures, and worlds. In poetic prose, Be More Bird illuminates the ancient, worldwide art of falconry and its urgent relevance for the modern mind: the importance of untethering our souls and belief-systems and rediscovering our place in the wilder world.

Review Quotes

"[The author] interweaves falconry folklore and legends from past to present, along with anecdotes of her life (and how it led to her owning a hawk), ultimately exploring how we can retether ourselves to the rhythms of the natural world."
--Booklist, STARRED Review

"Fans of H is for Hawk will enjoy this meditation through falconry. What might we learn from a hawk? For British author Meyrick, the art of falconry is rich in deep truths."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A moving account of how the sport of falconry helped [the author] navigate life as a mother and writer...Rich in description and insight, this soars."
--Publishers Weekly

"At a time when so much of modern life pulls us away from the living world, Be More Bird calls us gently back. With poetic prose, Candida Meyrick draws us into the ancient art of falconry, where graced conversations with hawks and the animate earth unfold. In these pages, our wild hearts are given new wings. A beautiful, restorative book."
--Lyanda Haupt, author of Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit

"The unapologetically elegant and dangerous Bird teaches us about connection, the vulnerability of power, and the hunger for both food and joy. A reminder that life's lessons are found not in the objects we hold, but in the spirits and bodies of the beings around us."
--Susan Cormier, author of Dead Bees Still Sting

"For a pigeon rescuer to rave about a book about a hawk must mean it is something spectacular. And that Candida Meyrick's book is. Imagine going on a walk with someone who sees the world as a painter would, speaks like a poet, and is carrying on her arm a creature so beautiful it makes your whole world vibrate. You are transfixed like a child experiencing wonder and you float (or soar) the entire way home. That's what it is like to read Be More Bird. The writing is stunning; Bird is stunning; the relationship between Candida and Bird is out of this world."
--Brian Buckbee, author of We Should All Be Birds

"A small masterpiece, written with heart, self-belief and wisdom. Wonderful!"
--Paul Theroux

"Be More Bird is a beautiful, deeply thought-provoking book filled with lessons about nature, about our relationships with the natural world and with each other. Candida writes with great joy and humility. We learn about hawks in history, language and culture, about their role in society over millennia. This partnership, between woman and hawk, is one of equality, reciprocity and mutual understanding. Candida finds freedom in a wild creature who is feral but accepts friendship. Falconry, she writes, has the power to both tame and release the wild in us. Most enchanting of all, we feel Candida's joy as she witnesses 'the flow state of creation' that is Bird in flight."
--Annie Worsley

"As a long-term admirer of Candida Meyrick's novels I'm delighted to see her returning to print with this subtle and beguiling memoir."
--DJ Taylor

"Candida Meyrick's lyrical account of hunting daily with her hawk is a love song to the splendour and wildness, the fragility and interdependence of life."
--Geraldine Bedell

"To enter into a relationship across the species boundary is to be slowly remade. Be More Bird is the record of one such remaking. Candida Meyrick's Bird did not arrive as a metaphor; she arrived as a Harris hawk requiring years of attention, training, and trust--and became one of the great teachers in Meyrick's life. This is the rare nature memoir that knows the difference between aspiration and practice. From the rich texture of her story, Meyrick offers an invitation to those who want a closer connection to nature: 'Stay humble. Keep working at it.'"
--M. Amos Clifford, founder of the Academy of Nature and Forest Therapies and author of Your Guide to Forest Bathing: Experience the Healing Power of Nature

About the Author

Be More Bird is Candida Meyrick's first work of non-fiction. She has published six previous novels under the pen name Candida Clark and written journalism, short fiction, and poetry. She lives in the United Kingdom.