Tweet of the Day A Year of Britain's Birds from the Acclaimed Radio 4 Series

If you have ever tried to persuade the BBC to feature an item about birds you will know that it is a challenging task. So it was with amazement that in May last year I realised that they had decided to broadcast a series on Radio 4 called Tweet of the Day. Each programme was to be just 90 seconds long, but there were to be 265 of them. Each programme started with the call or song of a different British bird, followed by an account of why this bird is interesting, read by a well-known wildlife presenter.

The series of mini-programmes was a huge success and I am sure that all of us as birders have heard about it even if we’re not radio listeners. There was an actual and digital audience of over a million people, plus a huge number of people downloaded the podcasts.

Some of the species were featured more than once in the series, so this book takes all 225 of them and provides a text of around 300-400 words on each. In many cases this is close to what was actually used in the narration. It covers what the birds look like, sound like and where and when you can see them – but is also packed full of folklore, poetry and ornithological observation.

Award-winning naturalist Brett Westwood and bestselling author Stephen Moss have distilled a lifetime's knowledge, insights and enthusiasm into these pages. It is also a beautiful book, elegantly designed and full of atmospheric illustrations by Carry Ackoyd.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was that the book did not come with a CD of the songs. Of course that would have increased the cost, but to have a book about a radio series without the actual bird sounds played on air seems a bit odd. Anyway you can download the sounds from the BBC iPlayer, so all is not lost.

The birds are divided into months from May through to April, with each one allocated to the month that makes the most sense. It does make sense – although October seems to be better month than I usually experience, with Bobolink and Mourning Dove being listed!

At £25 this book is quite a lot more than I would have expected. However the series has given huge pleasure to a nation of would-be birdwatchers, so I am sure it will be a success.