Standing up for Nature
Reviewed by Ian Carter This new book describes Lion conservation today and how we have arrived at the current situation. It rattles along at a lively pace and sets out the information very clearly, making it easy to assimilate. The writing style is akin to that of a well-written, well-researched, newspaper article – highly…
This is a simple idea – where would it be good to be in Europe watching wildlife on each weekend of the year? It’s a good idea. This weekend we should be in Matera, southern Italy with Europe’s largest Lesser Kestrel colony and in next year’s European City of Culture. We got here…
This is a lovely book. I really enjoyed it – partly, I suspect, because I have a similar sense of humour to that of the author and also because I am generally curious about life. The author goes for walks on the moors above Hebden Bridge (yes those moors) and his mind wanders widely,…
This is a reprint of the classic 1956 book by David Lack but, as in the updated version of his Life of the Robin, this is updated whilst maintaining the original text. David Lack’s study of Swifts took place in the tower of the Oxford University Museum and has continued to this day. Lack’s…
Reviewed by Ian Carter Seán Lysaght is a poet and writer and he brings his poet’s eye for observation to this exploration of his home country of Mayo and the wider west coast of Ireland. Spurred on by an interest in eagles and the tragic history of the two species in Ireland he trawls the…
This is a very interesting book which I recommend highly as a challenging read. The author takes us back over a century to Victorian and Edwardian London where in nasty little workshops the women working in the millinery trade produced the hats to adorn the heads of rich women – many of these hats…
Reviewed by Ian Carter The title of this book is taken from an Irish Government report dating back to 1969 raising concerns that Ireland’s natural heritage is being gradually ‘whittled away’. The report suggests, in the understated way of the age, that this ‘could represent a serious loss to the nation’. You could imagine much…
Reviewed by Ian Carter Having read his previous book describing a lifetime of watching, studying and obsessing about butterflies I was looking forward to this one. Thankfully, it shares many similarities, not least the in-depth knowledge, warmth and humour in the writing – it’s not often you catch yourself laughing out loud at a natural…
This book is written by a former MEP, a former boss of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the current Director of the think-tank Green Alliance. Shaun Spiers has been knocking around the policy and political world for a good few years and he’s no fool (no fool at all) and so his views,…
I expected this book to be a great visual treat considering the imprint from which it comes, and it is, but it is also a very interesting read. You can’t go far wrong with photos of cats – the internet is full of them – but these images of wild European Lynx are superb. …