Synopsis:
Bearded Tit is Rory McGrath's story of life among birds. From a Cornish boyhood wandering gorse-tipped cliffs listening to the song of the yellowhammer with his imaginary girlfriend, or drawing gravity-defying jackdaws in class when he should have been applying himself to physics, to quoting the Latin names of birds to give himself a fighting chance of a future with JJ - the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
As an adult, or what passes for one, Rory recounts becoming a card-carrying birdwatcher, observing his first skylark - peerless king of the summer sky - while stoned; his repeatedly failed attempts to get up at the crack of dawn like the real twitchers; and his flawed bid to educate his utterly unreconstructed drinking mate Danny in the ways of birding.
Rory's tale is a thoroughly educational, occasionally lyrical and highly amusing romp through the hidden byways of birdwatching and, more importantly, a love story you'll never forget.
Review:
"There is far more to Rory McGrath than meets the eye. Yes, he can be very funny, basic and boisterous, but beneath the stubble is a countryman and birdwatcher... lyrical and beautiful" (Daily Telegraph)
"Funny and surprisingly moving" (Griff Rhys Jones)
"Rory has pulled off something rather special" (Simon Barnes, author of How to be a Bad Birdwatcher)
"a gentle, warming, nostalgic and gag-ridden memoir...
His self-deprecation is not only disarming but occasionally very moving, and he pulls off a romantic twist at the end that will thaw the heart of the coldest Icelandic puffin." (Daily Mail)
"McGrath's tale of fumbled romance and birding evangelism is ultimately a sweet and elegiac read" (Mail on Sunday)
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