Macdonald, a historian in Cambridge, England, weaves together three story threads to create a wonderful narrative.  The death of her father, suddenly and without warning leads to her return to a hobby of her youth, falconry, and the acquisition of a young, female goshawk which leads to the discovery of the work and life of T. H. White.  These disparate elements are melded into a moving description of grief, intellectual curiosity, and love for the natural world in language that is both beautiful and moving.  Macdonald’s prose, especially her descriptions of nature and her metaphors, occasionally approach ‘flowery’ but always stop short leaving the reader to marvel at her ability to convey the appearance of the sky, the woods, the bird and the dead author whose life in falconry, education, loss, and failure seemed to both parallel hers as well as urge her to do better.  This is a lovely book to be read quietly and at long stretches.