lit a candle 1h agoI found Bird Therapy through a gardening forum in 2019 and read it at my kitchen table one whole afternoon. My husband asked why I was crying over a book about birds and I couldn't explain it then. The bit with the buzzards, him and Emma just standing there watching. 39. I keep coming back to that number.
Their story
Joe Harkness was a British author, naturalist, special-education teacher and mental-health campaigner whose writing made the restorative power of wild nature plain to readers living with depression, anxiety and neurodivergence. He was best known for Bird Therapy (2018), a crowdfunded memoir and practical guide that grew out of his Bird…
Joe Harkness was a British author, naturalist, special-education teacher and mental-health campaigner whose writing made the restorative power of wild nature plain to readers living with depression, anxiety and neurodivergence. He was best known for Bird Therapy (2018), a crowdfunded memoir and practical guide that grew out of his Bird Therapy blog, and for Neurodivergent, by Nature (2025), a Bloomsbury Wildlife book shortlisted for the 2026 Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. He died on 4 September 2026, aged 39, near his home in rural Norfolk.
Born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, on 23 December 1986, Harkness was raised from the age of four by his single working mother, an administrator. He later credited his maternal grandfather's quiet passion for the natural world, including walks around Brundall and the Norfolk Broads, with planting a seed that would return in adulthood. As a boy he was talkative, bright, inquisitive and full of energy, with a keen eye for detail and a love of nature. At school he was also restless and disruptive in ways he later recognised as undiagnosed ADHD. In Neurodivergent, by Nature he wrote that he "flew under the radar" in the early 2000s, when teachers and health professionals failed to offer a diagnosis, and that society too readily cast him as "the archetypal product of a single mother in social housing".
As a teenager he self-medicated with drugs, which he later said fed chronic anxiety. He dropped out of sixth form and did not pursue further education. In his twenties he worked as a development worker for the Prince's Trust and as a support worker for Mencap, while heavy drinking and drug use continued. In 2013 he was stopped from a suicide attempt, had a breakdown and took three weeks off work. On a country walk with Emma, his future wife, he watched a pair of common buzzards displaying over a tree-line. The encounter rekindled childhood memories of birdwatching with his grandfather and became the gateway into a new passion.
Harkness quit drink and illegal drugs and threw himself into birding with a speed that astonished new naturalist friends. He began teaching teenagers excluded from mainstream education, started the Bird Therapy blog as cathartic journaling, and built a following on Twitter under the handle associated with the project. When a follower suggested crowdfunding a book through Unbound, he raised the publisher's target of £18,500 in about five weeks. Bill Bailey was among the patrons who donated £1,000. Chris Packham wrote a glowing foreword predicting that the book would save lives, and endorsements came from Stephen Fry and the novelist Melissa Harrison, who called his writing "inclusive, unpretentious and evangelical in the best way".
Bird Therapy told the story of breakdown, near-suicide and recovery through watching birds near his Norfolk home, and offered practical tips for "well-birding" grounded in the five ways to wellbeing. It was translated into five languages. Readers told Harkness they owed their lives to him. Success also brought disillusionment with what he called the competitive "guild" of nature writers, and with social media that punished openness. "The more open I was on social media, the less people engaged with me," he said in 2020. "If you're already struggling with self-esteem, it is hell to be on it." He closed his accounts and turned toward family, teaching and quieter fieldwork.
He taught at Cromer Academy as lead teacher of the Specialist Resource Base, a 20-place provision for Norfolk pupils with communication and interaction needs, and was later a senior teacher at Parkside in Norwich, working with pupils with autism, ADHD, Down's syndrome and learning disabilities. Pupils and readers alike found him warm, inclusive, enthusiastic, empathic and fond of bad jokes. He made a point of talking about mental health with his students every day. In 2023 he published Inside/Outside, a nature-themed emotional-literacy resource for teachers (Routledge), and was nominated for an Eastern Daily Press Outstanding Commitment to Students Award.
A mental-health nurse at work asked whether he had considered ADHD. Formal diagnosis came in 2022 after more than three years of waiting. "The whole idea completes me," he wrote. Medication helped, and the diagnosis set him on the path to Neurodivergent, by Nature, sparked in part by a joyful new obsession with moths and by interviews with neurodivergent conservationists. The book argued that biodiversity needs neurodiversity: different brains notice different things, and conservation work needs that range of attention. It was shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards and for the 2026 Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. The prize ceremony was held on 17 September 2026 at Elmley Nature Reserve; Harkness had died two weeks earlier.
Before his death he had finished an extensively revised edition of Bird Therapy for Bloomsbury, due for publication in 2027. He is survived by Emma and their two daughters. An inquest opening at Norfolk Coroner's Court reported that he was found at Cawston Heath and died as a result of hanging; a full inquest was scheduled for 8 December 2026. His writing and teaching leave a practical, hopeful legacy: that noticing birds, moths and wild places can sit alongside medication, counselling and community as part of staying alive.
Biography adapted from The Guardian obituaries and features by Patrick Barkham; Eastern Daily Press; Audubon; Positive News; Cromer Academy; Wainwright Prize; English Wikipedia (Joe Harkness) and sources cited there.
In their own words
“In that moment, watching the flock of finches, I was allowing myself to become lost and absorbed in the sights in front of me.”
From Bird Therapy, quoted in the Guardian obituary (Patrick Barkham, 25 September 2026).
“I started to notice that when I was out, on my own, experiencing nature and birds in a personal and intimate way, I was more relaxed than I'd ever been before.”
From Bird Therapy, on the bodily calm he found in solitary birding; Guardian obituary.
“I just flew under the radar, like so many other children in my generation.”
From Neurodivergent, by Nature, on undiagnosed ADHD at school; Guardian obituary.
“The whole idea completes me.”
On receiving his ADHD diagnosis in 2022; Guardian obituary.
“The more open I was on social media, the less people engaged with me. If you're already struggling with self-esteem, it is hell to be on it.”
Remark from 2020 on why he closed his social accounts; Guardian obituary.
“Birds are reliable, in a way that people rarely are.”
Quoted in Positive News interview by Nicole Douglas-Morris (29 August 2019).
“I can have the worst day, but when I get home, the same birds will be in my garden. Their world goes on.”
Positive News interview, on the constancy of garden birds during mental-health struggle.
“If you don't have diversity of people, you don't have biodiversity. You can't have one without the other. They are intrinsically connected.”
Speaking to Patrick Barkham for The Guardian (25 July 2025) near his Norfolk home.
“I can't remember the last book I read that I could say with absolute assurance would save lives. But this one will.”
Chris Packham in his foreword to Bird Therapy, quoted in Positive News and elsewhere.
Photos
4Joe Harkness in woodland in Norfolk. His pupils and readers found him warm, inclusive, enthusiastic and empathic.
by People Forever
Joe Harkness beside an ancient oak near his rural Norfolk home while discussing neurodiversity and nature.
by People Forever
Joe Harkness outdoors in Norfolk during the Guardian feature on Neurodivergent, by Nature.
by People Forever
Joe Harkness in woodland in Norfolk. His pupils and readers found him warm, inclusive, enthusiastic and empathic.
by People Forever
