4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

As people are discovering, the time spent walking in nature is not wasted at all. It gives you head space and connecting with the sights smells and sounds of the outdoors is good for you. Sadly the state of the wildlife in this country is pretty poor.

Discovering what is in your local area and repeatedly going back to see what changes on a daily or weekly basis is a way of getting a richer experience of the wild around you. This is what Nick Penny did, he took almost daily walks along a short stretch of the River Nene in Northamptonshire. The more time he spent there, the more he heard and saw. He has a particular interest in the Kingfisher, the iridescent blue bird that most people have never seen. But if you know where and how to look these amazing little birds are suddenly there.

This book is a diary of the sights and sounds of his walks along the river. There are days when he sees lots of activity and other days when not much happens, such are the trials of wildlife watching. But those days can still refresh the spirit and that comes across in his writing. But this is not just about the river, he heads out into the countryside in the hope of finding cuckoos and nightingales as well as getting up way too early to go and hear the dawn chorus.

I thought that this was a wonderful book. Penny has managed to capture the things that he saw and heard on a daily basis quite eloquently. I liked the diary form too, that record of everything that he saw, for me, has a sense of grounding and it shows what you can find if you take the time to discover to fully explore your local patch

As I sit writing this review, I am listening to the sounds that Penny has recorded of the birds throughout the year. He brings his knowledge as a musician to this book too, and the sounds that he has recorded of specific birds and some of the dawn and evening choruses that he heard whilst researching this book. You can follow the link in the book and I thought this gave an excellent extra dimension to his writing. I can recommend this, primarily for the inspiration that it has given me to go out and find out more about the nature where I live in Dorset.

Listen to the sounds here They are well worth it.

Call of the Kingfisher – Audio Recordings

4.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

I have been going to Cornwall for holidays for many years now. I think that it is quite a special place, with beautiful coasts and dramatic landscapes. The side I see has always been the tourist side. However, for those that live there, it is very different. Love the county, its landscape is bleak and dramatic or small and cosy – provided you know where to go.

They are overwhelmed with tourists for half the year, and when they all depart, the income dries up and they have to scratch a living until the next season. Even if you do manage to earn a living, the chances of being able to afford a home there now are very slim. The tsunami of second homeowners with plenty of cash to spare means that most properties have been priced out of the locals price range. This is a subject that has been written about in the excellent Undercurrent by Natasha Carthew.

The place is almost an island, the border of the Tamar rises in the north of the county leaving the peninsular to only be joined at the top and because of this it doesn’t quite feel like England. How we perceive it as outsiders has been fuelled by many things including writers who have given us the image of a wild land and people.

What the county is, is an enigma.

The people best placed to answer what the county now is are the Cornish. Tim Hannigan is a Cornish man who grew up and worked there, before heading off around the world to write guidebooks and who now lives in Ireland. This gives him a unique perspective on the place, seeing it from the outside with a travel writer’s eye and knowing what makes the place tick.

How we perceive the place is very much different from the reality, and he takes time to show that as he moves through the literary landscape as he zigzags across the county on his walk. Not only do you get a journal of what happens that day to him on his walk, but he digs through the history of the places that he walks, lifting gems from history and folklore to tell us about. I thought that the folklore stretched way into the past, but it seems that it was mostly invented by two gents in the 1800s!

Not quite English, always Cornish.

I thought that this was well worth reading. Hannigan manages to describe the modern enigma that is Cornwall perfectly. The writing is really good regardless of whether he is describing the walking, the places that he passes and the people that he meets or his own hinterland. This isn’t a romantic view of the county either, you can sense his pride in the county as he tells of the parts that he loves and is fiercely critical of some of the problems that the county finds itself in. You almost certainly have a view of what Cornwall is, but it is like a kaleidoscope, with different people seeing different things from their perspectives. And in some way, it is all of those things and not at the same time.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

For too long we have cast aside nature, beating it into submission or just obliterating it, but the tide is turning and people are seeing that we cannot carry on like this forever as we will be deeply affected too. We are intrinsically linked to the natural world, after all, we are all part of the same ecosystem.

But where to begin? If you have been in a bookshop recently, you’ll have noticed that the range of nature books has grown exponentially over the past decade. This has been ably assisted by the Wainwright Prize. People became more aware of nature during the pandemic when they could head out on their sanctioned exercise and the sensory stimulation did them the world of good.

Nature’s Wonders is an introduction to the wonders that you can discover if you feel so inclined. The book is split into seasons and in each, Adams has selected various things to look out for in each. Some of these items are easier to find than others! So in spring, there are essays on bluebells, black caps and brimstone butterflies. In summer she suggests, chafers, foxgloves and taking the time to smell the scent of summer.

Autumn brings dramatic changes to the landscape and the essays include listening to the deer rut, the sound of the crickets in meadows and spotting the winter migrants such as fieldfares. Winter is the time for frosts and long shadows, but if you know where to look the last of winter brings out the celandines.

I really liked this book. If you are expecting in-depth guides on each of the fifty subjects that are written about in this book, then this is the wrong book to start with. Rather, it has been written to inspire people who are not sure about the natural world to take the time to go and find the things written about within and hopefully use it as a stepping stone to your own discoveries.

4 out of 5 stars

The act of pilgrimage was stopped in 1538 when Henry VIII banned it as he crushed the Catholic church just so he could marry someone he fancied. The act of walking as part of people’s faith was gone in this country. It still happens in Europe, there are many well-known routes that are still walked, even to this day.

The discovery of a map in the Bodleian Library showed a faint red line linking together the towns and villages of a route from Southampton to Canterbury. It had been long forgotten but was thought to be the recommended route people walked to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. Given the almost complete lack of knowledge, the decision was taken to rename it the Old Way.

Having learnt about this pilgrim route, it was something that Gail Simmonds really wanted to do. It was walking over her favourite landscape, chalk downland and it was something that she felt that she wanted to undertake alone.

This is the story of her journey.

I really liked this travelogue of Simmonds’s modern pilgrimage from Southampton to Canterbury. It is split into four parts due to the various restrictions and lockdowns that took place at the time (remember those days?). This was more than a five-hundred-year-old route through, the landscape she is walking through is thousands of years old and if you know how and where to look, its secrets can be revealed. With her background in medieval history research into a locale is something that she is an expert at and in my opinion, Simmonds manages to get the right balance between the travel and history. Her writing feels that you are accompanying her on this walk rather than being given a list of things that happen on her journey. Can highly recommend this.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Of all the weathers that we experience, wind is the only one that we can hear and feel but not directly. I do think I can see the wind when I see trees being buffeted, or crows dancing in the wind. It is caused by the movement of air from one part of the planet to another, flowing from high-pressure points to low-pressure points in the search for equilibrium. Even though the air never stops moving, there are days when it can be utterly still and as blissful as they are surreal.

This flow of air around the planet affects everything. It creates waves, erodes mountains, moves vast quantities of dust from Africa to the Amazon and has created and formed economies and human culture. Along with earthquakes and volcanoes, winds in particular forms can be the most destructive things that we have on this planet. As a hurricane or typhoon, they can flatten buildings, toss cars in the air like confetti and as tornadoes, obliterate everything that they touch.

Humans have understood this phenomenon for millennia now. Wind has pressed it’s way into folklore and culture and has been used in warfare and has driven people mad.

I really liked this, the cultural history of wind is a wide-ranging subject that Pryke has managed to condense into this fascinating book. The prose feels authoritative without reading like an academic book. It is really nicely produced with high-quality pictures making it a fine addition to the Earth Series of books.