If recognising a bird in flight or distinguishing the different birdsongs of the dawn chorus or the evening orchestra are things that you long to do, then Simon Barnes’s A Bad Birdwatcher’s Companion (Naxos, CDs, £16.99, offer £15.29 inc p&p from 0870 1608080) is for you.

Chaffinch: think of a fast bowler warming up for his run-up, dadadadadada deeeeeee. Thrush: sings its song twice over, just as Robert Browning told us. Woodpigeon: “take two pies, taffy, take two pies, taffy”. As well as apposite description, there is much fascinating lore. Robins are uppity and see anything red as a rival; swifts “scream like customers riding on the big dipper”, spending up to two years on the wing and mating in the sky. Barnes covers garden, countryside, city, freshwater and seaside birds, as well as “pilgrimage birds” — ones worth travelling to see, such as avocets, ospreys, marsh harriers and bitterns.

He writes with engaging intimacy and dramatic immediacy, getting us into the mindset of the birds so that we understand both their talents and problems. The narrative is gracefully punctuated with classical music – the Four Seasons, Peter and the Wolf, The Carnival of the Animals and, of course, Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending.

Perrault, the Grimms and Andersen all told fairytales with a moral twist for their times that lasted on into our own; Edward Lear and Hilaire Belloc excelled at nonsense stories. But much of what they wrote is incomprehensible to modern children. For the 21st century, we need something more recognisably relevant.

Terry Jones, who always has his own take on whatever comedy or literature he sets out to write, has achieved just that in his two collections, Fairy Tales and Fantastic Tales (both Orion, CDs, £9.99, offer £9.49). He offers an explanation of the dawn chorus that Barnes would appreciate as well as a novel solution to the problem of long noses and an imaginative response to the horrors of the Ship of Bones.

Jones reads the Fantastic Tales himself; Fairy Tales has a resplendent roll-call of narrators: the irresistible Joan Greenwood (“ Dahling!”), rough-and-tough Bob Hoskins, calming Helen Mirren and tweedy Michael Hordern.

To hear extracts and see slideshows of A Bad Birdwatcher’s Companion go to timesonline.co.uk/barnesonbirds

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