Whether as sources of joy and pleasure to be fed, counted, and watched, as objects of sport to be hunted and killed, or as food to be harvested, wild birds evoke strong feelings.
Sean Nixon traces the transformation of these human passions for wild birds from the early twentieth century through the 1970s, detailing humans’ close encounters with wild birds in Britain and the wider North Atlantic world. Drawing on a rich range of written sources, Passions for Birds reveals how emotional, subjective, and material attachments to wild birds were forged through a period of pronounced social and cultural change. Nixon demonstrates how, for all their differences, new traditions in birdwatching and conservation, field sports, and bird harvesting mobilized remarkably similar feelings towards birds. Striking similarities also emerged in the material forms that each of these practices used to bring birds closer to people – hides and traps, nets and ropes, and binoculars.
Wide ranging in scope, Passions for Birds sheds new light on the ways in which wild birds helped shape humans throughout the twentieth century, as well as how birds themselves became burdened with multiple cultural meanings and social anxieties over time.

Sean Nixon is professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex.

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"An exciting book. It argues rigorously and objectively that conservation and fieldsports ... are inextricably integrated in a rich cultural history." Shooting Times

"Examining connections among the disparate activities of bird conservation, bird watching, field sports, falconry, and mass harvesting of birds for food, Nixon focuses on the cultural history of birds in the 20th century, chiefly in the British Isles and the North Atlantic region. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals." Choice

"Clearly argued, thorough, and wide-ranging, Passions for Birds challenges the conventional view that conservationist ideas simply replaced older, more visceral ones. Nixon argues further that one cannot intelligibly separate out the histories of conservation, natural history, and field sports, that they need to integrated in a single richer cultural history." Jeremy Mynott, author of Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience

“Passions for Birds unfolds as a beautifully written, engaging account of transwar British relationships with birds and their evolution from models emphasizing aristocratic hunting or falconry, favoring exclusive encounters, to conservation amidst an ecological consciousness, permitting a more democratic enjoyment of birds in spectatorship and tourism on preserves. The book’s lyrical aspects make for enjoyable reading while the author skillfully wraps his arguments in approachable, yet rigorous, theoretical explanations.” H-Environment