Eric Simms has had a career, of which natural history has been a facet, which has proved him as practical as he is polymathic.

Editor's preface.

To have attempted the writing of this book twenty years ago would have been an impossible task, since it is only during the last two or three decades that there have been any lengthy population studies of woodland birds.

Foreword.

The time is five past twelve. It is a still, cool May night and the streets of West London are lying deserted and slightly damp - moonlit pools under the lamp-posts.

Introduction.

To find the birds of the British woodlands I have had to visit many different parts and to see many kinds of countryside.

Chapter 1. The tree's environment.