I LET A BABY BIRD NEST IN MY HAIR FOR 84 DAYS

Our bond was so strong that it became immeasurable – we both needed each other. In return for putting his life back on course, he was replotting mine by giving me purpose and new perspective.

By Hannah Bourne-Taylor
In 2013, my husband, Robin, took a new job in Ghana. We relocated from London, where I worked as a photographer and copywriter, to the capital, Accra. We then moved to the grasslands, where guinea grass swayed 11ft tall. Home was a thatched bungalow beside the Volta River. I had loved nature since childhood, when my dad taught me about birds and animals. I photographed horses professionally and considered the outdoors the place where I felt most alive. So when we arrived on the plains, I felt relief.

Robin worked, but my visa didn’t permit me to, and I was left isolated, homesick and lacking purpose. With few people around our home, I turned to nature. I learned the routines of local birds – the weavers that flew from kapok trees, trailing fronds like streamers, and the pair of violet turacos that went to roost every dusk.

In September 2018, the rainy season was in full flow. After one particularly bad thunderstorm, I found a fledgling – a bronze-winged mannikin finch – barely a month old, on the ground. He was abandoned by his flock, his nest blown from the mango tree. His eyes were tightly shut and he was shuddering, too young to survive alone. He was the size of my little finger, with feathers the colour of Rich Tea biscuits, inky eyes and a small bill like a pencil lead. I placed him in a cardboard box with tea towels, mimicking a nest, and stayed up all night, researching how to care...read more