Eva Meijer blends fact with fiction in this gracious interpretation of a bird researcher's life. Naturalist Len Howard published Birds as Individuals in 1952 and Living with Birds in 1956. Her work was focused on individual avian intelligence, and was inspired by the birds living in and around her home in the English countryside, the aptly named Bird Cottage. Although the greatest depth of her research occurred there, her time as a musician with London's Queen's Hall Orchestra was a turning point in her youth, as she realized her true calling lay outside the city all along. Real notes from the Bird Cottage studies are interwoven with fictionalized accounts of Len's experiences in and outside of London, giving a full view of the often tenuous balance between city life and the natural world that surrounds us.