Now, as you might know, Chris Packham is a mate of mine but let’s be clear, he does know his birds, although like the rest of us he does make mistakes. Ask him (no don’t, please!) about the bird squashed on the road that he thought was a [I’m not going to tell you] which…
Category: BOOK REVIEWS
Sunday book review – Natural Causes by Stephen Mills
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I liked this book very much. It is written by someone about my age (slightly older) who has travelled to many of the same places as I have at similar times of his life but I don’t think you would have to have been in Oxford, the Camargue or the Coto Donana at those times…
Sunday book review – Wetland Diaries by Ajay Tegala
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I’m not a massive supporter of the cult of youth as I feel it’s a stage of life that is best grown out of. But this book, from this young (early 30s) man, is a joy. Really! The author is enthusiastic about his job as a ranger at the National Trust’s site of Wicken Fen…
Sunday book review – Birds & Flowers by Jeff Ollerton
This book persuaded me to be interested in something in which I didn’t think I wanted to be interested. That’s an achievement for any author – to engage the initially uninterested. And Jeff Ollerton does it through a mixture of his own enthusiasm, very clear explanation of some fairly complex (but beautifully complex) biology…
Sunday book review – Purposeful Birdwatching by Rob Hume
This is a lovely book, filled with an appealing mixture of wisdom, humour, nostalgia, stories, facts, speculation and common sense. It’s about birdwatching, very much birdwatching, and not just birding, for Rob Hume has watched many birds and thought about what he was seeing and, it seems, enjoyed most of it immensely. In a mixture…
Book review – Legacy by Dieter Helm
I’m not a great fan of economics because it always seems to explain things in retrospect rather than predict them in prospect but you can write that off as hauteur from one trained as a scientist if you like. But I always like Dieter Helm’s books and in 2019 I chose his Green and Prosperous…
Book review – Groundbreakers by Chantal Lyons
This is a fine book about a very interesting species. I’ve seen Wild Boar in continental Europe (Netherlands, France and Spain) but not yet in the UK. Decades ago, in the Camargue, I sometimes travelled the roads after dark in a flimsy ancient Citroen Deux-Chevaux and I always thought that any close encounters of…
Book review – Seabirds Count by Daisy Burnell et al.
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The British Isles provide nest sites for internationally important proportions of the North Atlantic biogeographical area seabird populations and, for several species, high proportions of global populations. If you want to see large numbers of nesting Manx Shearwaters, Great Skuas and Gannets then this is the place to come. And so it is concerning…
Book review – Local by Alastair Humphreys
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I very much enjoyed this book, and when it is published on Thursday I think many readers of this blog will like it too. Alastair Humphreys is a traveller and adventurer who has travelled the world but in this book he still has mini-adventures and is always travelling, it’s just that he chooses about 50…
Book review – Wild Shetland by Brydon Thomason
This book is a visual treat. Photographs of Shetland’s wildlife, mostly birds and mammals, through the seasons. And the photographs are exceptionally fine. As you might expect, there are Otters, Bonxies and Puffins but also a range of unusual and rare birds and sea mammals, many other Shetland seabirds (including the wonderful Storm Petrels…