Lev Parikian interview - www.rcommendr.com

What are you writing about at the moment?

I’m at the very early stages of a book about migration in animals.

Which is the first book by you people should read?

I suppose it depends on their sphere of interest. Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? tells the story of my return to birdwatching in middle age, and specifically how I spent a year trying to see 200 species of British bird in 2016. It’s partly memoir, partly Nature Writing™, and I hope it’s a fun read for anyone with even the most passing interest in birds.

But I’m particularly proud of Taking Flight, which is the most science-y of my books (but, I hope, not offputtingly so). It took me into areas of research I’d never imagined when I started writing about the natural world. Tying up all the aspects of the story of flight in the animal kingdom – evolution, biomechanics, physics, biology and plenty more – into a more or less coherent bundle was a daunting task. Each book has an “oh god I’m never going to be able to do it” moment – Taking Flight had hundreds of them. It was especially pleasing that after all that hard work it was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize.

Can you explain how you started birdwatching again?

After a childhood obsession, the interest in birds had become buried by Other Things for at least three decades. And then, as middle age took hold, I just started noticing them again, old bits of knowledge floated to the surface, and it went from there. A flock of Canada geese flying low over my head in the local park was one memorable trigger, but it came at a time when I was casting around for something to write about, and it seemed like a perfect fit. That book was Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear?, and birdwatching and writing have been a huge part of my life ever since.

Do you use Merlin or other bird identity apps? Do you recommend them?

I use Merlin from time to time, and it is remarkably good, but with the usual caveats. I reckon it’s most useful as a learning aid, because it does get things wrong. Sometimes its claims are extravagant and spectacularly wide of the mark – it went through a phase of insisting that extremely rare American vagrants were turning up in my local south London park – but it’s the more plausible identifications that can lead people up the garden path. It has difficulty distinguishing a particular chaffinch call from a very similar call made by a redstart. Obviously in the grand scheme of things these are minor complaints – I’ve heard from many people that it’s transformed their daily walks and inspired them to become more interested in birds and wildlife in general, which can only be a good thing.

How did you become a conductor?

I studied timpani and percussion, and from early on in my student years I became interested in the different approaches taken by different conductors, and how they could affect the sound of an orchestra while barely saying anything. The shift from back of the orchestra to the front took place gradually over the next fifteen years or so.

At this point I should emphasise that conducting is a very strange thing to spend your time doing – you’re the only person on stage who doesn’t make a sound, and while it’s far too easy to overstate the importance of what we do, the line between effective and harmful conducting is often quite blurry and mysterious. Orchestral musicians manage pretty well without conductors a lot of the time – part of the art is knowing when they need you, and how best to help.

What other artistic practices are close to conducting (it seems like a unique artform)?

Anything that involves managing the needs (and possibly whims) of multiple people in order to deliver a broad artistic vision, I suppose – film/theatre/TV directing spring to mind, the difference being that the conductor does it all in real time. That doesn’t necessarily make it more difficult, of course.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’ve just finished a reread of Tim Dee’s Greenery – a fantastic book following spring across continents, using the swallow’s migration as its guide. And Katherine Rundell’s wonderful The Golden Mole – a collection of writings about different animals, filled with wonder, beautiful writing, and fascinating factlets about the natural world. I also have collections of Saki and Raymond Chandler on the bedside table – perfect “last thing at night” reading.