4.5 out of 5 stars

One of our largest wading birds is the Curlew. To give you some idea of its size, the body is about the same size as a herring gull, but with much longer legs and rather than a bright yellow beak it has a gently curving bill, perfect for finding its food in the mud flats. They have a distinctive call that evokes so much for many people and that along with their looks has inspired poems and paintings.

About a month ago we headed out to Arne on the other side of Poole Harbour and there were four curlews in the River as it flowed into the harbour. Sadly though, all of these things that make this bird so special for so many people are almost lost to us. Most people will have never heard the cry or seen this species of bird, and it seems that most people never will. Across Europe, numbers have dropped around 20% and in Ireland, over the past three decades, next pairs have fallen from 5,000 pairs to just 130. Rightly so it has gone on the red list.

To see for herself, Mary Colwell decided to walk from their breeding grounds in the West Coast of Ireland to the east coast of the UK. Before this 500 mile journey begun though, she heads to Snettisham in East Anglia to see a flock of the birds. A few weeks later she arrived in Ireland to see a project in Country Antrim and begin her walk. The plan was to arrive in Wales as they were incubating their eggs,  find them with the chicks in the western part of England and arrive back on the East Coast six weeks later to see the fledgelings making their first attempt to fly.  It is this part of the country that the curlews would begin their preparations for the winter

Colwell’s journey is almost a pilgrimage in respect of these birds. She is supported by those who are also horrified by the catastrophic collapse in numbers. The writing is really special too, she is passionate about these birds in particular and her love of the natural world is clear as day in her prose. There is something else in this book too, not anger, more absolute fury, so much so that Colwell used the walk to raise money to heighten awareness of their predicament. Given that it is thought that we have lost around 60% of animals this should be essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. As a small aside, it does have a stunning ‘naked’ hardback cover with lovely gold blocking and has lovely illustrations by Jessica Holm scattered throughout.

5 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

With their slightly naff arcades and a stiff enough wind to blow sand in your ice cream, there is some unique and nostalgic about the British seaside. The cry of the herring gull is one of the distinct sounds that make the trip to the coast; for some, it is a special sound, others, however, detest these bold avians. However, their reputation is not great though, they are known as bin chickens and frequently called something ruder especially after they have just purloined your chips. In this modern world, there are a lot of creatures suffering at the hand of man, but some survive and others thrive. Gulls are one of those that are making the most of the way we are now using our landscape.

Where gulls win though is our wastefulness these days, we throw so much rubbish away as well as littering the cities and countryside that they have become intertwined and dependent on us. As we are not allowed to incinerate rubbish these days, the items that we cannot recycle have to go into landfill. On every waste site around the country, you will see gulls in their hundreds, sifting through the plastic searching for titbits to eat. The generic, and incorrect term, seagull covers all of these large white birds. But if you take time to stop and look at them you will start the see the difference between the various species that live in the UK. Until recently it is only with the science of DNA testing that now that we are seeing the subtle difference between very similar looking gulls and that are many more subspecies than was first thought.

A ghost gull – the colour of dirty ice or wood ashes. It was like an ice-light or snow lantern on the shore.

Tim Dee has been a bird watcher since his teens, where he would try and look at almost anything with feathers, but he is becoming a “larophiles” or gull enthusiast as they pique his curiosity now. He heads to Essex to one of the main landfill sights for London to help catch and ring them and realises just how large they are when handling them. He travels backwards and forwards across the country seeking them, as well as heading to South Africa and then Madagascar to see their gulls. It is wide-ranging too, he finds gulls in books, those that have made it to the big screen as well as those that have had their fifteen minutes of infamy in the news. Mostly though this is a eulogy to a bird that most would not even consider worth watching, birds that he can see every day when he closes his front door in his home city of Bristol, birds that are intrinsically linked to us. Thought that this was another brilliant read from Tim Dee and after reading this I am never going to look at gull in the same way. Very highly recommended; if you haven’t read his other books, then I would urge you to do so.

4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

Scotland has a rich and varied history, that if you know where to look, is very visible. Until recently most people there walked everywhere and the paths that they trod are still visible in the landscape if you know where to look. Alistair Moffat is one of those who has been looking for these historical routes in maps and books and most importantly on the ground.

His research has given us this book of ten walks scattered around Scotland each with a particular theme or historical event. Beginning with the path from Loch Tay to the Firth of Tay, called the River Road, Moffat walks and talks us through the history, culture and landscape as he walks the paths. From there he takes us along the Herring Road, the Rail Road, the Road to Ruin and the Road to Heaven.

I really liked the nice hand-drawn maps at the beginning of each of the ten journeys and this is a really enjoyable book about walking historical footpaths. He undertook all of them over the course of a year, in all weathers, with his maps and ever-present cheese sandwiches. More importantly, this is the beginning of a project, provided funding can be sourced, to find more of these routes and to make them safe for more people to walk along with proper signage and so on, with the hope of having public art and apps that tell the history as you follow in the footsteps of others from times past. I hope that the project gets the necessary funding they need for this.

4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

For those of you who have not come across Tom Gauld before, you are in for a treat with this collection of literary-themed postcard set. In here are 50 of some of his funniest bookish cartoons written with his very distinctive artworks and deadpan humour. To give you a flavour of the quality of his work, have a look at his website and

https://www.tomgauld.com/portfolio/

https://www.instagram.com/tomgauld/

I do have a couple of favourites in here, one of which is a guy looking for his kindle, the other is how a book lover packs for their holiday.

I have been a fan of Tom Gauld for a while now, cutting out his cartoons from the Guardian Reviews and keeping them so to have some of the best in one collection is great. There is only one problem with this though; it is a book that you will need to buy two of. One to keep and one to send the fantastic postcards from to other book-loving friends. I won’t be passing any from this copy on, but some may be getting it as presents.

4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

2013 dawns and Guy Stagg has decided that he wants his life to take a different direction. Having suffered for years from mental illness culminating in a nervous breakdown, he is desperate for a way to get better. He had decided to walk the 3,400 miles from Canterbury to Jerusalem as a pilgrim and an unbeliever, hoping that the ritual of walking will heal his mind. He would walk at the pace that suited him, following the ancient pilgrimage paths and relying on the generosity of strangers to give him shelter and nourishment.

Leaving the UK at that time of year meant that when he got to the Alp he was going to be walking over the mountains in the winter. This was the first of his many physical and mental challenges that he faced on his walk, some days were easier than others and he was lifted by the assistance that he got from people that he had never met and was likely to never see again after he walked on in the morning. As well as private homes, many of the places that he stays are monasteries and convents. They provide conversation and food and he slowly gains an insight as to why some have chosen to step back from society and follow a different agenda. Meeting these different people with their own slightly different interpretation of the Christian faith gives him insight into the way that modern religion works compared to the saints, missionaries and martyrs of times past. Across Europe, people are slowly losing their faith, but oddly pilgrimages are becoming more popular, for a whole raft of reasons for those that undertake them.

Staggs main aim of his pilgrimage was to overcome his own personal mental health issues. It is a tough walk back from the darkest points of his life so far. There is a rawness to the writing, understandable, given what he has been through and continues to suffer from, as he walks. But it is also a contemplative and meditative walk across Europe to the Middle East discovering that humanity does still exist in these troubled times.

4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

Scotland is famous for its breath-taking scenery, the fertile lowlands, rolling hills and the much climbed Munroe’s. It has been extensively written about and photographed so finding another route and a narrative that flows from this landscape cannot be easy. Chris Townsend takes an idea that he got from Ribbon Of Wildness by Peter Wright. He wants to walk the spine of his adopted land from the border at Deadland Fell right up to Duncansby Head on the North coast.

 A watershed, a divide, between two worlds.

This backbone of the country that follows the line of hills that the water drops away either to the Atlantic or the North Sea is about 700 miles long. It is a tough walk too, crossing moorlands, bogs through forests and or course over the top of mountains at an average height of 450m. At certain points of the route, the line between the two directions of travel that the water goes can be less than 50m or be vast distances apart in the flatter parts of the country.

 A  trickle begins, running gently downhill, eventually to reach the ocean

This is the first of Townsend’s books that I have read and it is not going to be the last. This thoroughly enjoyable travel book about him walking through Scotland is written at the same gentle pace that he walked at. For him, the adventure is the journey, not the finish and over his route, he has some adventures, gets soaked several times, avoids being blown off a hill, watches the sunset on a perfect evening from his tarp. He has quite a philosophical outlook, reminisces about past walks and contemplates both the independence referendum in Scotland and rues the Brexit vote. We learn about the places that he passes, touching on the history and the wildlife that he sees, but not in an overbearing way. It also has some of the best maps that I have seen in a travel book, the route is clear and unambiguous as it wiggles it’sits across the landscape.