This book has a laudable aim, to wit to nudge us to travel less in cars, but it’s quite a big ambition in a country with poor public transport, and for a leisure activity where some of the best places are out of town and somewhat remote. But here you will find a variety of outings you can make from a carefully selected 20 towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales and see quite a range of wildlife. In fact the wildlife laid out in these pages is impressive and I’d like to see it all. Where the book worked best for me was in persuading me that making a day trip into London, from Northamptonshire, might well be worth it to visit Hutchinson’s Bank or Paradise Fields with my Senior Railcard and bus pass. If I do, then the detailed accounts of how to travel, where to go and what to see look as though they will be very useful.
But when I visit relatives in Hull and am gagging to visit Spurn then the alternative to jumping in my car, or in my daughter’s electric car, are to wait until Saturday (as that is the only day it runs, March – November) and get the slow bus to Spurn. And maybe there won’t be many takers for seeing Black Grouse at World’s End where you leave Wrexham just after 6am to travel a few miles by bus and then face a four-mile uphill stomp to see the grouse far less well than those sitting in their cars. And all that is based on you being in Wrexham the night before.
If you start your day in London, Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham or Edinburgh then I can see that this book is very useful as a guide to using public transport to visit urban wildlife sites, and I suspect there are other locations, not included here, where that would be true too.
Compare the ease with which you can watch sporting events and watch wildlife by public transport. Most sporting events take place at designated and often regular times at a limited number of large venues and attract big crowds. Taking the train and then walking (or getting a bus) to the match is commonplace. It’s rather different from how we consume wildlife in our leisure time and given that wildlife is often found at quiet less-visited areas then it’s not surprising that public transport doesn’t always come up with easy solutions.
Those sports fans aren’t necessarily the least bit bothered about their carbon emissions, but society makes their travel quite low-carbon by making sustainable policy decisions. With more such decisions, involving low-carbon energy production then our lives will be lower carbon, but it isn’t accepted in UK politics that that should be what we do, and it isn’t accepted in society that that is how one should vote.
The carbon benefits of personal decisions that many have made involving not flying (or hardly flying), being vegetarian (or almost vegetarian), travelling less, and switching to renewable energy suppliers will dwarf the harm they do by driving to Spurn a few times a year rather than getting the bus. Indeed, many who have made a long list of personal choices that slash their carbon emissions may feel that they deserve to use their cars less but on such activities.
The book is well written and has a wealth of useful detail about toilets (or lack of them), bus times and routes and which road you should walk along, as well as the wildlife you hope to see. And it is clearly and well written too. But often, the clarity and detail just rub it in that this is a relatively hard road to follow.
The cover? A train, some bikes and some wildlife – it’s fine but doesn’t quicken the pulse at all. I’d give it 6/10.
Where to Watch Wildlife in Britain by Low-carbon Transport by Megan Shersby, Heather Devey, Rebecca Gibson and Dan Rouse is published by Bloomsbury.
You could buy this book from Bookshop.org and I have set up a booklist to make that easy through this link https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/MarkAvery Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase
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