Candida Meyrick

“A small masterpiece, written with heart, self-belief and wisdom. Wonderful!”—Paul Theroux

“[Explores] how we can retether ourselves to the rhythms of the natural world."—Booklist, STARRED Review

“A moving account of how the sport of falconry helped [the author] navigate life as a mother and writer...Rich in description and insight, this soars."—Publishers Weekly

In this exhilarating debut memoir, a woman's extraordinary bond with her hawk imparts life lessons about resilience, freedom, and self-discovery.

Isolated in the British countryside with her young family during 2020, writer Candida Meyrick makes the leap to adopt a twelve-week-old Harris’s hawk named Sophia Houdini Whitewing—aka Bird. Over the following months, she trains Bird to soar, hunt, and dazzle, and as Bird masters the sky, Candida is swept into a new way of living: one that centers courage and self-discovery. Through her time with Bird, Candida finds lessons for herself—to experience life fully, to be daring, to let go, and try new things—as well as lessons in parenting both Bird and her own children.

Working with her Harris’s hawk over the following years reveals a new world: confronting mortality daily, moving through a liminal landscape, part sky-, part earth-bound. Every day’s hunting brings a new life-lesson. Bird opens up a way of being that is everything Candida most longs to be: courageous, compassionate, independent, full of joy—free as a bird.

Through daily adventures across field and woodland, through bog and briar, Candida comes to realize that Bird is showing her the way, guiding her soul, revealing truths about her life that would otherwise have remained hidden.

Set against the untamed beauty of remote and rustic Welsh and English forests, fields, hedgerows, and seashore, Candida’s evocative story charts the subtle, profound bond between human and hawk—a relationship that bridges species, cultures, and worlds. In poetic prose, Be More Bird illuminates the ancient, worldwide art of falconry and its urgent relevance for the modern mind: the importance of untethering our souls and belief-systems and rediscovering our place in the wilder world.