Collins British Wildlife

Product Information

Reading nature books is a pleasure for anyone with an interest in natural history, plantlife and British wildlife. Books can introduce you to new species, places to visit, compelling rural life stories, brilliant walking routes and give you knowledge to help you appreciate and understand the natural world around you. Curling up with a good book to enjoy the simple pleasure of reading is not just a way to acquire new knowledge, but reading can also help you relax and truly be in the moment. Books also make perfect presents for outdoor lovers, offering inspiration, beautiful images and all-year-round armchair escapes.

Jenny Landreth is a swimmer, of that there is little doubt. Her vivid descriptions of the meditative peace found in a good swim shine with the liquid intensity of sunlight reflected on rippling water. His awareness of the environment and eye for wildlife resonated as I read, and Will writes with a genuine sense of humility. He is well scarred from a life of travelling and exploration, but his experiences have made him wise. He avoids drifting too deep into memoir, and relates with humour and reflection. Fortunately, Neil Ansell has devoted his life to the roads less travelled – especially where there are no roads. Here he spends a year on a number of expeditions roaming the extraordinary peninsulas from Mallaig to the Sound of Mull. The names, beautiful though they are (Knoydart, Morvern, Morar, Ardnamurchan), are not as important as Ansell’s journey to find wilderness – or perhaps escape mundanity. He camps on empty beaches, walks over seldom-conquered peaks, steps through forests where only deer tread. Occasionally he meets wild human spirits – fellow wanderers and bothy hunters – and he has extraordinary wildlife encounters with otters, eagles and even pilot whales. Produced in partnership with Plantlife and punctuated by illuminating commentary from Dr Trevor Dines, Dan Pearson, Nicholas Coleridge, Miranda Brooks, Alan Titchmarsh and HRH The Prince of Wales among others, this sumptuous tome is a love letter to our native wildflowers but also a conservational clarion call. Preserve our wildflower meadows; protect their future.

Instead, alcoholism, misogyny, racism, jealousy and ostracisation provide context to the author’s equally harrowing personal circumstances. There is graffiti. There are drunk neighbours almost crashing a tractor into the croft, broken wrists, suspicions regarding her ram’s death and the colleague who asks Tamsin if she wasn’t ashamed to be seen with her father “because he is a darkie”.

For centuries, walled gardens have provided food and flowers to great houses. Starting as simple medieval enclosures, they evolved into powerful status symbols and centres of world-class expertise. During 20th century most were lost and abandoned but, happily, today many have been revived. Much of the action takes place in the dark or half-light: we’re led at whisker-level over moors and streams into fields and woods as both hunters and hunted travel the landscape. The animal characters joke, grieve, love, form alliances and even have visions. Yet no other book has given me such a powerfully visceral sense of what it might be like to be a wild animal. The great appeal of this book is that it encourages you not just to run, but to enjoy a day out exploring somewhere new, which makes it ideal for families, because many of the paths can be run with a running buggy or with a young child accompanying on a bike. Each run can also be walked and they’re easily accessible by car or public transport.While politically radical and deeply insightful, this is not a dour book in any way. Hayes proves himself to be “brilliantly alive” – his forays across the imaginary lines that exclude us are described with a lightness of touch that brings humour into the darkest places.

Andy writes well, so longer captions would have been welcome. I’d also have liked to see more of the smaller creatures. But this is a stunning celebration of a savage yet beautiful landscape. Today, we know that insects are also being impacted by a new suite of chemicals, and yet there is little change. Are our nature conservation bodies less able to affect change, he wonders; are politicians more negligent or big business more powerful? “We need immediate change rather than more research,” he writes. “Governments and big business love research; it means they don’t have to do anything now.” It’s fascinating to discover the extent to which Yorkshire has been at the heart of England’s history and that through trade, whaling and emigration, the county has had a significant impact on the wider world. This is a welcome addition to the bookshelf for the Yorkshire enthusiast, as well as those seeking their first introduction to this magnificent county.Over recent years, we have spent more and more time indoors, and for many of us, this has only increased with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as a species, we're programmed to love the great outdoors. Even just looking at a green space reduces stress and improves psychological wellbeing. Few places on Earth remain untouched by humans, creating challenges for the wildlife we share it with. We have entered a new age, and we must look at the splendour of the natural world through a different lens.

Unmoored by motherhood, Huband is struggling to find her place in the remote island community, and her painful joints are made worse by the relentless wind. But she discovers a new identity as a beachcomber. “Instead of fearing storms, I began to watch for them,” she says. Following his grandfather’s death, Will begins his angling odyssey afresh. He casts for different species in various places, with a clear, more open-minded perspective. As he rekindles his love for angling, so he learns more about himself.The book also contains wonderful literary nuggets (including evidence that Shakespeare hated hedgehogs) and appalling puns. Yet this is far from a light-hearted romp through the British countryside, and the (often horrifying) statistics and meticulous research are ever-present in the narrative, which never shies away from complexity and ambiguity. He finds silence – or nature’s return – in places that once thronged with drovers, miners or crofters, and tells poignant tales of long-lost lives. A navvies’ graveyard near the remote dam they built; illegal stills hidden in the wilds; abandoned mines on the Slate Isles; caves that hid Jacobin fugitives, now known only through rumour. Though Baker weaves the known history around his present adventures, each of his journeys fills with atmosphere and emotion.