Torbjørn Ekelund - Selected Title Author
We are happy to present our selected title author Torbjørn Ekelund. He has written A Year of Birds. Ornithological Field Notes from My Immediate Surroundings (original title: Fuglenes år. Ornitologiske feltnotater fra mine nærmeste omgivelser). The book is one of NORLA’s Selected Titles of the autumn 2025.
What is your book about?
A Year of Birds is about a special year in my life, when illness kept me from living the way I wanted to. I’ve always been someone who loves spending time outdoors, and I had already written several books about nature – the forest and the mountains, specifically. But then everything changed. I developed epilepsy. The seizures came without warning. I was put on medication with intense side effects. I no longer had any energy, and I no longer dared to go on trips into the forest and the mountains or sleep alone in a tent. Then, I discovered the birds in my garden, and thought: “This is something I can study and write about! This is a kind of nature experience that suits someone like me!” The birds in my own garden: wild creatures, nature in its purest form, right outside my door.
What inspired you to write this book?
Studying the birds in the garden involves what I believe is the best of all human qualities: the ability to see and to try to imagine what life is like for other creatures. When I study the birds in my garden, I am someone who is observing life as it unfolds, completely undisturbed. I’ve always liked being in nature in this way: watching the shifting light and the changing seasons, trying to understand what is happening and writing about it. When illness prevented me from going on more intensive expeditions, I realized that birds represent the closest we come to real, wild nature – right next to the houses we live in. Birds are everywhere. They are social, they are diurnal – they live lives that resemble our own. The more I studied the birds in my garden, the more I learned about them – the different species, their different habits. Stories were unfolding out there in the garden every day, all year round. I stood by the window and studied them with binoculars, and that’s how this book came to be: a series of field notes from my very closest surroundings. And a story about a very unusual year in my life.
Read more
See full presentation of the book here
Read more about the author here
See all NORLA’s Selected Titles for the autumn 2025 here
