During a time when many people faced the prospect of little work or human contact, Nick followed the pinkfeet and brent geese that filled the Norfolk skies and landscape as they flew in from Iceland and Siberia. Thank you very much to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. As an adult he migrated away to Bolivia to work in conservation for a decade until on a trip back he saw a brent and took it as a sign to continue the good work at home.

In their flocks, Nick encountered rarer geese, including Russian white-fronts, barnacle geese, and an extremely unusual grey-bellied brant, a bird he had dreamt of seeing since thumbing his mother's copy of Peter Scott's field guide as a child. Now he mostly stays close to home in North Norfolk, where he grew up and where generations of his family have lived and farmed, working for Norfolk Wildlife Trust and appreciating the flora and fauna on his doorstep. Nick is proud to be an ambassador for Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Pensthorpe, a trustee of Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, a member of the steering group of New Networks for Nature, a patron of Felbeck Trust, and a recent president of Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society.Tundra bean, taiga bean, brent … I don’t think I’ve seen any of these species – not even pinkfeet, to my recollection – so wished for black-and-white drawings or colour photographs in the book.

Add Acheson’s reflections on a changing environment and his fleeting interactions with like-minded bird lovers and The Meaning of Geese is mournful and magisterial. As two Sherpas ponder what to do next, their predicament triggers Daniell’s brilliantly tangential excursions into their state of mind, personal histories and aspirations. He is never happier than when reading Shakespeare or listening to Bach in his garden, embraced by the happy hum of wool carder bees and Willughby's leafcutters.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.