Standing up for Nature
For me, this book is almost a perfect 10 – let’s give it a 9.6. I was handed this book by its author at the Bird Fair at the weekend and, after saying thank you, said I’d put it on the pile of books to review. But having unwrapped it from its cellophane I dipped…
Chris Packham is a great guy – I admire his toughness and his persistence. But he gets an awful lot of very nasty flak from the shooters. Remember the Countryside Alliance called for the BBC to drop their best wildlife presenter a couple of years ago – well, don’t think that has gone away,…
The authors’ forum at the Bird Fair is packed with good talks by authors of good books on each of the three days. Here are examples of talks by authors of books that have been reviewed here: Friday 1315-1400, Ian Newton, Farming and Birds Saturday 1415-1500,…
Reviewed by Ian Carter This is clearly a book that has stood the test of time, deemed worthy of a new edition almost ten years on from its initial publication. After a few pages of introduction, the bulk of the book is taken up by the species accounts, roughly equally split into vertebrates, invertebrates…
I sometimes wonder how many New Naturalists are read rather than collected as an investment – well this one should be read. Ian Newton has never produced a duff book – his works are characterised by clarity and suffused by a deep knowledge of the biology of the subjects on which he writes. This one…