Connie was born on 06th July 1907 in an English household to a mother who was a teacher and an archaeologist father. They lived all their lives in a town called Burnley in Northwest England. She was the only child and was much loved by her parents and extended family and was often surrounded by many of them. People thought that she was a lonely child but Connie always felt the need to be left alone. She was an imaginative little girl who soon found her passion in bird watching at an early age. She would watch birds make patterns in the orange skies before the sunset and wondered how birds at each end of the pattern, know which way to go. She dreamt about learning their language so she could eavesdrop at their chatter and maybe talk to them someday.

As she grew up, her passion flourished. She studied ornithology in college. She studied the Bowerbird and its habitat; she explored the aerodynamics of bird and spent years understanding her childhood fascination, the owl.

As an old woman, still awestruck by her feathered friends, she planted for songbirds as much as she could in her garden. The wild growth in front and back of her house initially attracted neighbours complains as well as council’s ire, but soon the song birds took refuge. Her home became known, to the locals first and to many more later, as an oasis in the middle of an urban desert. Children would spend hours in her garden, which always had open gates and neighbours prided themselves for living close by. The birds themselves, knowing that they belonged and that their language was well understood, never left their urban home.

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