One Essex winter (or was it ten?), John Alec Baker carefully, methodically, calmly, found and followed the peregrine falcons that made the Chelmsford countryside their home for six months of the year.
Wonderful writing.
“A cock blackbird, yellow-billed, stared with bulging crocus eye, like a small mad puritan with a banana in his mouth.”
(And I am a bit squeamish about birds and dead things.)
This is the book that convinced me I needed to add Nature writing as a new genre category to SparklyTrainers. It’ll be broad, covering wildlife and the countryside.
Publisher page: The Peregrine – J. A. Baker
(Sort-of)Author’s page: J A Baker & The Peregrine – a website about the author, his writing and his Essex environment.
Reviews and related writing
Essex rediscovered: ghosts and falcons on a rural ride – Carol Donaldson, The Guardian, 28 January 2018
Violent spring: The nature book that predicted the future – Robert Macfarlane, The Guardian, 15 April 2017
A precise and poetic paean to the peregrine – Charles Moore, The Telegraph, 24 May 2010