Standing up for Nature
I’m a big fan of Peter Marren’s writing – his Rainbow Dust was (and is) a lovely book which I listed as my #2 book of the year for 2015. Peter has also written a number of Guest Blogs here and I hope he will write some more. This book is one that the author…
It must be summer because I am picking elderflowers from which to make champagne. Spring is over, and if you are a birder then you are now in the position of suspecting that any passage wader on your local patch is already heading south after a nest failure (it’s really already autumn!). This anthology is…
This book is a classic and has been reissued with an introduction from David Lindo (whose National Bird Vote firmly established the Redbreast as our national bird) and gorgeous artwork by Robert Gillmor (as in the 1965 edition but with a spanking new cover). And this re-issue also has an account of the importance of…
You may remember the film Kes (director, Ken Loach) if you are a certain age, and you may well have had to study the book A Kestrel for a Knave at school if you are of another certainly younger age. In either case you will associate the name Barry Hines with that story of a…
I haven’t taken a photograph of a bird for c35 years so nature photography isn’t my passion. This may be because my father was a keen, amateur landscape photographer and sons tend either fully to absorb or shun their father’s interests. But I do remember, perhaps before reaching teenage years, going with Dad to an…
I opened this book with some trepidation because I wanted to like it and wasn’t sure that I would: I needn’t have worried. This book gives a thorough and somewhat engaging account of the protection of landscape beauty in the UK and is written by someone who has played a major and positive part in…
This book has a clever title and a lovely cover by Darren Woodhead. Its author is also a lovely guy: a good broadcaster, great conversationalist and a real laugh. However, despite all that, I’m not won over by the book. It is also based on a clever idea – take a dozen birds and write…
A collection of writings about spring – what could be nicer? This book is one of four on the seasons. Are there really four seasons, I wonder? I’m not totally sure that summer exists – doesn’t spring (March-June) just fade into autumn (July- December) and then there is a bit of winter (January and February),…
Kevin Parr wrote the book that I selected as my favourite of 2014, The Twitch – that one was a black comedy, though very funny, I thought, about a murderous twitcher. This book is very different, and is about Parr’s greater love – fishing. And it’s not a laddish tale of bonking, drinking and murder…
I’ve lived with House Martins in the streets where I live, and sometimes next door, but never on my home, for more than half my life. Their return, ahead of the screaming Swifts, is looked for and appreciated when it happens. And they are there, chirrupping in flight, all summer long and sometimes daring to…