Books – Hoopoe – A blog by nhbs

Book Review: Radical by Nature

***** A tremendously enjoyable biography

2023 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Best remembered as the father of biogeography and co-discoverer of natural selection, he was an all-round fascinating person. Evolutionary biologist, entomologist, and Darwin and Wallace scholar James T. Costa gives an in-depth, intimate, and updated story of his life.

Given the many other available Wallace biographies, why read this one? Because Costa can safely be considered an expert on the history of evolutionary thought. Next to three books on Darwin since 2009, Costa has also studied Wallace’s life and work since 2010, resulting in three books, not to mention numerous academic papers and magazine articles. What this means in practical terms is that Costa provides context, context, context.

As such, he explains the relevance and novelty of Wallace’s ideas at the time (and I am going to be very selective here). For instance, Wallace was one of the first to insist on the recording of accurate location data when collecting animals and plants. When moving east and west in the Malay Archipelago, he thus noticed that the fauna on some neighbouring islands differed sharply, a local division later named the Wallace Line. It undermined geologist Charles Lyell’s idea that environment alone determines distribution.

Speaking of Lyell, some of Wallace’s most underrecognized ideas concern transmutation (as evolution was known back then). Lyell claimed that species were immutable entities and that the fossil record reflected separate rounds of creation. Wallace disagreed; he was never one to shy away from discussion, even with intellectual giants. His then-novel idea was that “every species arises in immediate proximity to a preexisting and closely related species” (p. 158). But how? Wallace’s flash of insight on natural selection, the remarkable confluence of Darwin and Wallace’s ideas, and the case Wallace was building against Lyell are all deeply interesting topics that I am deferring to other reviews. Instead, let me briefly consider his take on anthropology. Wallace was fascinated with the indigenous people he encountered and his approach “was nothing less than a natural history of humans” (p. 196), applying the same evolutionary logic he applied to other animals. Against the background of a divided discipline back in London between polygenists (who saw races as separate entities, even species) and monogenists (who saw “races” as variations of a single human species), Wallace hewed closer to the latter.

Costa also provides much historical context on Wallace the person. He is rightly remembered as a humanitarian scholar for whom justice was his lodestar. Utopian socialist Robert Owen left a deep impression and the young Wallace was a regular at the halls of science and mechanics’ institutes that were just then popping up everywhere. These promoted self-improvement of working-class people through education. His full conversion to socialism came much later in life though. Wallace was an early advocate of women’s rights, supported the suffragette movement, and more than once campaigned for scholarly societies to allow women in. He also campaigned for land reform, and in hindsight regretted that many of his early survey jobs served ongoing efforts at land enclosure that effectively screwed the poor.

Cyriopalus wallacei Pascoe, 1866 (Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae) Holotype. — Cyriopalus wallacei Pascoe, 1866 (Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae) collected by Alfred Russel Wallace, via flickr.

Now, how for some context to the above context? Despite the above character sketch, it would be an oversimplification to celebrate Wallace as “an almost uniquely nonracist, egalitarian Victorian […] who was “woke”” (p. 166) before the rest of us were. Sure, he was respectful towards indigenous people, credited his field assistants, and criticized European civilization. But for all that, he was a product of Britain’s global empire. Wherever he went, he could call on officials, transportation networks, and crews of unnamed porters and boatsmen for assistance. And despite his opposition to slavery, he frequently turned a blind eye to slave-holding friends and expats.

Further commenting on Wallace’s character (here comes more context), Costa admits that Wallace’s trusting nature could border on the gullible. His interest in spiritualism caused disbelief among his peers, even while they praised his scientific achievements. Costa points out that many science historians forget how it impregnated Victorian society at all levels and even some of his critics attended séances suspiciously often. The other faux pas is Wallace’s opposition to smallpox vaccination campaigns. Wallace, himself vaccinated, was all about the science, but this was in its infancy in the 19th century. “We cannot hold those who lived in the past to standards based on modern understanding” (p. 353), pleads Costa. Fortunately, we find him on the right side of history where eugenics is concerned, which he denounced as “the meddlesome interference of an arrogant, scientific priestcraft” (p. 490, note 52).

Costa’s writing is lively, occasionally interjected with chatty remarks or witticism that made me chuckle. When Wallace writes that Alexander von Humboldt’s travel narrative gave him a desire to visit the tropics, Costa responds that “Wallace got a “desire to visit the tropics” all right” (p. 46). When Wallace scathingly remarks that indigenous women in New Guinea are “the least engaging specimens of the fair sex” he had ever met, Costa parries that “chances are he was not viewed by the locals as the hottest specimen of white European manhood either” (p. 231). And when only the religious Lyell is willing to take serious Wallace’s new spiritualist tendencies, Costa imagines how “Darwin could only shake his head at the two of them” (p. 310). I found these a welcome source of levity.

Beetles collected in the Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace. — Beetles collected in the Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, via flickr.

Much more can be said about both Wallace and this wonderful biography. Wallace left behind a mountain of written material for historians. Instead, let me circle back to my first question. Why read this biography? In fairness, other biographies provide details omitted here. Far more important, however, is what Costa adds. Much unpublished information has come to light since the 2013 centenary and Costa has drawn extensively on the archive of material that Wallace’s grandsons had. This was gradually annotated and digitised from 2010 onwards as part of the publicly accessible Wallace Correspondence Project and has allowed Costa to add much intimate detail from hundreds of personal letters.

Given the above, Costa’s stated aim of writing an updated biography has been more than realised; this book is a triumph! I tremendously enjoyed Radical by Nature and was very impressed with the depth of its scholarship. Next to an intimate portrait of this most fascinating scholar, Costa provides much detail on a critical period of scientific development and the social context in which it unfolded.

Radical by Nature is available from the NHBS bookstore here.

Author interview with Richard Broughton: The Marsh Tit and the Willow Tit

Marking the first monograph for either species, Richard Broughton’s The Marsh Tit and the Willow Tit reveals the remarkable lives of these wonderful little birds. Compiling decades of personal research, as well as a detailed review of external studies from across both Europe and Asia, it explores each species’ taxonomy, food and foraging patterns, social organisation, challenges and conservation, alongside more than 150 illustrations, maps, charts and photographs.

Dr Richard Broughton is a research ecologist with a wealth of experience across birds, mammals, forests and farmland in Great Britain and Europe. He has studied Marsh Tits, Willow Tits and their habitats for over 25 years, and prior to this he completed a Master’s degree in GIS as well as a PhD in Marsh Tit ecology, before joining the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Cambridgeshire.

We recently chatted to Richard about his inspiration for the book, which challenges he faced when developing such a detailed study of these two species and more.

You have studied Willow Tits and Marsh Tits for much of your career. What initially captivated you about these charismatic birds, and what inspired you to write a book about them?

I had Willow Tits on my local patch in Hull when I was a youngster at school, and I had Marsh Tits and Willow Tits around my first office near Huntingdon when I started my science career. Both species were always a bit special and enigmatic – not so common that you saw them every day, but when you did it was like seeing parallel lives going on around you. They’re a lot like us, mostly preferring to live as couples in stable relationships, with busy social lives and a close attachment to their neighbourhood.

From a research perspective, Marsh Tits and Willow Tits are fantastic species to study. They are widespread from Britain to Japan, they’re territorial and they don’t migrate, so the same birds are present all year round and you can really get to know them – how they communicate, organise themselves within their communities and solve the problems of living in different types of woodland, it’s all really fascinating. And there’s so much that we still don’t know, with lots of discoveries to be made, but also some urgency. We don’t fully understand exactly why they’re declining in many areas, so the inspiration for writing the book was partly to bring together all that we know about their ecology and what pressures they’re facing. If Marsh Tits and Willow Tits are struggling, then we need to listen to what this is telling us about our woodlands and forests.

Both species have suffered severe range declines – how can the general public work to better support these birds amid habitat loss and climate change?

The main thing is to know where Marsh Tits and Willow Tits are still hanging on, and where they are declining – taking part in surveys and reporting sightings to the county recorders and BirdTrack are great ways of helping to monitor both species. Protecting and expanding their habitat is essential, but for that we need to know where they are, and in what numbers.

It’s also important to realise how we can unintentionally make things harder for Marsh Tits and Willow Tits when we do favours for their competitors. There is growing evidence that increasing numbers of Blue Tits and Great Tits could be harming Marsh Tits and Willow Tits by taking over their nests and dominating their foraging space. The vast scale of bird-feeding in gardens, woodlands and nature reserves is changing our woodland bird communities, and it really boosts the dominant species, which can then put extra pressure on Marsh Tits and Willow Tits. For this reason, it’s important to consider the unintended negative impacts of well-meaning interventions, such as bird-feeding and nestboxes, on more vulnerable species like these.

I was surprised to learn about the ineffectiveness of nest boxes in supporting Marsh and Willow Tit populations in relation to competition. Do you think this is also the case for other species across the UK, and what alternatives could we use to mitigate this issue?

The problem with nestboxes for Marsh Tits and Willow Tits is that they’re far more likely to increase the densities of their dominant competitors, especially Blue Tits. If you add more nestboxes to a woodland then you will get more Blue Tits, but Marsh Tits and Willow Tits don’t work that way.

This is because they have much larger territories, and you could fit 15 pairs of Blue Tits into a typical Marsh Tit or Willow Tit territory. These large areas contain enough natural nest sites for Marsh Tits and Willow Tits, and so these species are limited by the area of woodland habitat and not by tree cavities or deadwood for building their nests. As such, adding nestboxes cannot increase the numbers of Marsh Tits or Willow Tits like it does for Blue Tits.

This shows how it is important to fully understand a species’ ecology for any conservation actions to work. A better solution is to promote diverse, wilder woodlands that have plenty of opportunities for Marsh Tits, Willow Tits and other woodland species at more natural densities. If not over-managed, woodland can quite quickly develop enough nesting sites on its own.

Within the book you mention the woodland restoration projects being undertaken in Scotland, which are striving to establish woodlands to support native species, including Marsh Tits and Willow Tits. Can re-establishing these complex habitats truly help to encourage population growth? And what would be your main recommendations for large-scale restoration projects with these species in mind?

Expanding woodland habitat is a good way to help buffer Marsh Tits and Willow Tits from population declines, as the losses in Britain are greatest in areas of more fragmented habitat. In Finland, too, logging and habitat loss is driving population declines. Increasing the amount of woodland reduces habitat fragmentation, which in turn helps birds to disperse across the landscape and provides space for more breeding pairs, so it can only help. The natural range of Willow Tits, and probably of Marsh Tits, once covered much of Scotland, and so restoring forest cover in that country could help to re-establish their populations.

Looking ahead, Scotland could eventually provide an important refuge for Marsh Tits and Willow Tits, being further from the intensive agriculture, urbanisation and more intense warming of southern Britain. We can look to other natural and regenerating forests in Europe to see what this restoration could look like in Scotland and elsewhere in Britain – varied tree density and structural diversity, lots of standing and fallen deadwood, and plenty of water in streams, pools and soils. Where we still have such places in Europe, like in Poland’s Bia?owie?a Forest, then Marsh Tits and Willow Tits both find places to live in different parts of the same woodland.

The Marsh Tit and the Willow Tit is very thoroughly researched and includes an extensive breadth of information. Did you encounter any challenges when developing such a detailed study of these two species?

I was lucky that there have been major studies of Marsh Tits and Willow Tits in Europe over the past century, and I have been involved with several of them in recent decades, so I was familiar with their findings. For other studies, it has never been easier to find and access published papers and reports online, and even to translate them automatically.

Nevertheless, it was still quite challenging to find many studies from Asia, which is where more than half of the world’s Marsh Tits and Willow Tits are thought to live, along with their closest relatives, the Black-bibbed Tit, Caspian Tit and Sichuan Tit. This is slowly changing, as more research is being done in China, Japan and South Korea, but there are still large gaps. In Europe, too, we still know relatively little about Marsh Tits or Willow Tits in some regions. Even in Britain, the recent discovery of a previously unknown population of Marsh Tits in the Scottish Borders shows that we still have things to learn!

What have been some of your favourite moments while researching this book? And did any of your discoveries surprise you?

It’s been a great pleasure to look back through all of the previous studies of Marsh Tits and Willow Tits and pay tribute to the dedicated researchers who spent so many years in the woods and forests, peering into the lives of these little birds. What shone through for me is just how connected the forest ecosystem really is. Marsh Tits and Willow Tits are part of a complex web of life, with some really surprising relationships. For example, Bison and Red Deer stripping bark from trees helps to create the cavities that are the Marsh Tit’s favourite nest sites. Meanwhile, Willow Tits forage on carrion from Wolf kills, which helps them to survive northern winters. At the other end of the spectrum, Marsh Tits and Willow Tits both drink nectar from blossom and might be significant pollinators of woodland shrubs, and they might also be seed dispersers for some woodland plants.

We’re just starting to understand these relationships, but in many parts of Europe they have been broken by the loss of forest species, such as large mammals. It’s exciting to think that nature restoration and rewilding could rebuild some of these ecological networks in our woodlands. Again, there’s still so much to learn about Marsh Tits and Willow Tits, but getting to know them opens a window into the wider forest ecosystem, and the more you look, the more you find.

Finally, what is occupying your time now? Are there new books on the horizon that you can tell us about?

I’m still monitoring my Marsh Tit population at Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire, coming up to 24 years of study, and I’m busy with interesting research at UKCEH on hedgerows, woodland regeneration, sustainable farming and nature restoration. In the past year I’ve been busy as the new Editor in Chief of the BTO’s scientific journal Bird Study, helping other researchers to publish their studies. I’m also still involved with research at the Biaowiea Forest in Poland, which always has exciting opportunities, and last spring I was there finding the nests of Marsh Tits, Willow Tits and Wood Warblers. The Wood Warbler is another declining woodland bird that has lots of really fascinating and surprising behaviour, and that’s another species that I think could be worth writing about.

The Marsh Tit and the Willow Tit is available to order from our online bookstore here.

Author interview with Dr. Tim Reed: Protected Species and Biodiversity – A Guide for Planners and Ecologists

Protected Species and Biodiversity: A Guide for Planners and Ecologists is a comprehensive, accessible book that collates every key element required to gather and interpret survey data for protected species.

Progressing through individual species and group tables, and providing information on planning systems, biodiversity, government guidance and its interpretation, how to secure better quality data, biodiversity net gain and more, this guide also codifies what a planner can expect from an ecologist to ensure the effective safeguarding of protected species. As such, it is an essential reference guide for planners and ecological consultants alike.

Dr. Tim Reed has had a lifelong interest in the use of data quality and survey methods as a basis for credible decision-making by those whose actions influence landscapes and protected areas. This has included developing survey methods for waders on moorland, standardising nature reserve management plan formats, chairing development groups for national-level databases, and collaborating with the EU on data standards for directives. Over the past 20 years, Tim has helped major worldwide corporate companies establish biodiversity as part of their risk-management processes, while also working on public inquiries across the UK.

We recently had the opportunity to chat to Tim about what inspired him to write a book aimed at planners and ecologists, how Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) could potentially affect protected species across the UK, the importance of technological advancements in accurate data collection and more.

Firstly, as someone who has spent most of their career working in planning and sustainable development, what inspired you to write this book?

Years ago, when working on immigration and extinctions in island bird communities, one of the things that impressed, but also worried me, was the extreme variability in the quality of data from year to year. Were the gaps in species records (apparent extinctions) real, or were they due to issues with data collection or recording? Moving onto protected areas and the related planning policy framework, the same problems with data quality surfaced there.

Later, when I began working on planning disputes it was clear that local planning authorities (LPAs) were staffed by good, but often overwhelmed, planners. A series of Association of Local Government Ecologists (ALGE) reports have confirmed this. ALGE reckoned there were issues of capacity (people/time) and competence (often limited specialist knowledge) that stopped LPAs doing what they wanted to do. These remain today.

Looking at the often frankly poor material dumped onto them by would-be developers, it was and is hard for planners to know how to address it, how to find out what’s needed, and where the gaps were and are. Suitable methods had been scattered across journals, books, and specialist documents, and were often hard to fathom. The absence of a recent one-stop synthesis of most of the material needed was the main driver for Protected Species and Biodiversity; trying to fill an acknowledged hole. The fact that Natural England and DEFRA’s guidance for Protected Species left much to be desired was a further problem. The idea of the guide was to try and provide an accessible way of seeing what needed doing. Something that would be suitable for planners, householders and developers’ ecologists alike – and for LPA planners to use and see if what had been claimed by applicants had been done properly, or not.

If the guide works, then the hope is that a better, more informed level of debate can take place. If so, better data will be provided and protected species and biodiversity will be the winners. The core methods section (Chapter 5) is suitable for protected species in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) on a gloved hand. — Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) by J P, via flickr.

Biodiversity Net Gain is a recent development in planning and land management. How do you think the introduction of this policy will affect protected species across the UK?

As I try to show in the last bit of the guide, BNG isn’t focused at all on protected species; delivery is still expected through protected species legislation. Yet, there is clearly a hope that BNG will sneak in more of all sorts of species, some of which may be rare or protected. Duffus et al (2024) have neatly shown that the score in the area-condition metric used by BNG isn’t related to either species richness or abundance. Instead, more information is needed, along with species surveys. If so, then they need doing well – and there is a debate to be had on that in the guide too.

This book emphasises the importance of collecting high-quality data for use in planning. As data quality improves, could there be a shift in our understanding of the UK’s condition? And could the true state of the UK’s biodiversity be worse than we initially thought?

Better knowledge, better use of standardised methods, and a better understanding of what the resultant data does or doesn’t mean, along with less use of unverified mitigation techniques: all will help us understand potential impacts of planning proposals on biodiversity a little bit better than we do now.

Better data might well show problems, but could also help in some circumstances by showing that some things are better than we thought, or by waving a flag before it is too late to act. Getting consistently reliable data will allow more meaningful actions at a local and wider scale.

Great Crested Newt by Leonora (Ellie) Enking. — Great Crested Newt by Leonora (Ellie) Enking, via flickr.

Chapter 5 offers an extensive insight into the data local authorities should collate when conducting an in-depth evaluation of protected species. Did you face any challenges in keeping this section accurate?

Of course things do, and will continue to, change. Even when the first draft of the text was completed there were basic changes in NE/DEFRA guidance that required reappraisals and revisions. The species guidance was equally dynamic. So, yes, it was tricky keeping up to date. The role of the guide is to bring together what we knew at the time of writing in an accessible way. If things change dramatically, there may be a case for a revised version in 5-10 years’ time. But in the meantime, it is there and might as well help people trying to understand what needs doing, or where claims need contesting, and why.

How important do you think technological advancements, such as bioacoustic methods, will play in collecting more accurate data?

Technology is critical in helping us better interpret the environment. For example, I use a range of bat recorders, and recorders have got better, and more efficient with time.

Technological improvements are fine, but they still come with error terms. Knowing and stating the limitations of methods and data are critical to help us understand what we can and can’t do with a set of data. In Public Inquiries, I regularly saw untenable claims relating to bat data that rarely matched the reality of the technology used. Query this, and the case often began to fragment. eDNA has its own issues too. So, yes in principle to advances in technology, but yes also to clear health warnings and stated limitations in any planning submissions that use them.

Hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) by Frank Vassen. — Hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) by Frank Vassen, via flickr.

What do you hope readers and practitioners will take away from your book?

The main message is that good data is key to an informed discussion between developers, opponents and planners. Being able to see what is needed, how it might be done, and why the precepts of BS 42020 (Biodiversity Standard) are core to the process. Openness, transparency and knowing what is needed will help us all – and biodiversity in particular. Poor data, bad methods and doubtful claims won’t help. If this guide helps LPAs pick some of those up, then it was worth writing.

Finally, what is occupying your time at the moment? Are you working on any other projects we can hear about?

Although now largely retired, I continue to write a blog on matters that interest me: serious and whimsical. I’m standing down now from Chairing a Friend’s Group for an island nature reserve. Having written the management plan for the site, the dim and distant origins of the island intrigue me, and there are plans in the pipework for a small book on the history and ecology of the island.

Protected Species and Biodiversity: A Guide for Planners and Ecologists is available from our online bookstore.

Fungi Under the Lens and Fork: An NHBS Booklist

Parasol Mushroom by S. Rae via flickr. — Parasol Mushroom by S. Rae, via flickr.

In the early stages of the average mushroom-enthusiast’s journey, there comes a time where you begin to consider where you can take the interest of fungi further. Maybe you have identified all the mushrooms in your garden and want to learn more, or maybe you’ve even been intrepid, foraging and sampling some of the edible species out there, and are left wanting more. What ‘more’ looks like to some people becomes growing your own mushrooms, making spore prints, creating your own ink from the dripping tops of an inkcap mushroom, or perhaps you may want to look down a microscope to explore the sub-perceptual world of fungal microscopy, and that’s what these books aim to facilitate.

However you choose to flesh out your interest, the books below provide an excellent guide to the next steps in mycology.

Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing and Working with Fungi

Radical Mycology is an awesome book in a very biblical sense. it inspires awe and in a more modern sense it is simply really, really cool. This book is a single man’s knowledge of all things fungi, distilled into 646 pages of rich prose, instruction and guidance. It moves through topics, that many other books have tackled in single volumes alone, in sections such as ethnomycology, culture, cultivation, medicine (*see footnote) and lab work, and does so in a way that doesn’t feel clunky or dense. I don’t think there is a topic in mycology that isn’t covered by this book in some way, and that to me makes it a unique treasure trove of knowledge. A field guide it is not, being quite large and very heavy, and it is not trying to pretend to be anything other than a treatise on the world of mycology. Filled with activities and projects that you can do yourself, it is not a passive book. It gets you interacting with and manipulating fungi, working with them in a way that you would not otherwise, and for that I think it is highly recommended for every reader, from the beginner to the professional. And if none of that takes your fancy, there is even a section on mushroom–related puns and a printout–and–play boardgame!

Growing Mushrooms at Home: The Complete Guide to Knowing, Growing and Loving Fungi

A more focussed look at cultivation and less dense than Radical Mycology, this book is primarily aimed at beginners who are looking to expand their knowledge of cultivation in its many forms, and is filled with simple, easy to follow text and beautiful images of mushrooms. It is designed to be accessible, so I would wager that this title is not suited for those of you with more experience in the field. But, for a first foray into mushroom cultivation this might be the book for you.

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation takes a deeper dive into the same topic as the previous title. The book spans from easy projects that you can do at home with very little resources, to more advanced techniques that even the most experienced mycologist would enjoy having under their belt. The book also touches on mycoremediation (using mushrooms to improve the environment, from pollutants etc.), which is a wholly worthy topic on its own and will open your eyes to the potential for individuals to change the world for the better. After all, anyone who’s anyone in mycology has tried growing mushrooms on their old clothes, right?

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms: A Companion Guide to the Mushroom Cultivator

No list of mushroom cultivation books would be complete without a title by Paul Stamets – and this one is no exception. A dated publication now, owing to its original publishing in 1988 and subsequent re-prints in 1994 and 2000, have meant this this book has taken a back seat to the new shiny covers in the field. However, this has not dulled its brilliance at all, and it remains one of the most influential books on mushroom cultivation. The book contains foundational knowledge on mushroom cultivation for the amateur grower and is still held in high regard by anyone with a slight interest in modern mushroom cultivation. A must read and a true introduction to mastering the art of mushroom cultivation.ng mycologist.

* ‘Mushroom medicine’ is a term used often in fungal–oriented literature, and sometimes quite liberally. I would be remiss to note that processes, procedures and purported effects are anecdotal and not always backed up by peer–reviewed empirical research, and in a lot of cases research is ongoing. This is not to say it is not true, it’s to say that more research is usually needed. Be aware of the legality of foraging mushrooms in your area and remember, don’t munch on a hunch! Always ID your mushrooms and if you are not 100% confident consult a professional.

Author interview with Ursula Clare Franklin: Mission Penguin

Following the loss of her husband, Ursula Franklin embarked on a mission to see and photograph every species of penguin in their natural habitat. In this breathtaking book, join Ursula on expeditions to some of the most remote places on earth, from the Falklands to Tristan da Cunha and Antipodes Islands, in search of these much-loved birds. Interspersed with stories from Ursula’s adventures, each chapter explores a different species of penguin, detailing their identifying features, the ever-increasing threats they’re facing, and the conservation efforts needed to ensure future generations can experience the wonder of these animals.

Ursula Franklin is a keen wildlife photographer who grew up in Yorkshire, and is now based in Somerset. She developed a keen interest in photography when she was a child and her wonderful husband supported her passion until his sudden death in 2012. As a way to process her grief and heal, alongside her husband’s constant encouragement for her to ‘do something with her photography’, Mission Penguin was born.

We recently had the opportunity to talk to Ursula about her expedition, how she thinks we can we work to protect these vital species in the future, her favourite memories throughout this journey and more.

Plus, enter our prize draw to be in with the chance of winning one of four exclusive Mission Penguin prints here.

Having travelled around the world and seen every species of penguin in every habitat, which species surprised you the most and why?

Like many people, I had always associated penguins with snow, so it was amazing to discover that some species breed in forests, others in the desert and one species even at the equator. The species that really surprised me, however, and for a totally different reason, was the Royal Penguin. This species breeds on Macquarie Island, and in the north of the island are the rusted remains of huge digestors which were once used to extract oil firstly from seals and then when they ran out, penguins. Millions of King and Royal Penguins were slaughtered leaving just a few thousand birds when the barbaric practice was finally stopped. Having suffered years of persecution by man, I marvelled at how trusting the birds were. As I sat on the beach, groups of Royal Penguins waddled up to me, inquisitively studying my boot laces, camera bag and equipment. They were so curious and seemed utterly fearless. It was hard to imagine humankind betraying such trust. Luckily, over the last 100 years, their numbers have steadily increased and in 2022 they were finally taken off the list of near-threatened species (IUCN red list). Hopefully they will continue to increase despite the human-induced climate change crisis.

Royal penguins waddling across Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island.

You were lucky enough to witness the full, daily lifecycle of a number of penguin colonies by watching them from dawn until dusk, and I particularly loved the photographs of the Gentoo penguins on Saunders Beach at sunset. What does the typical day in the life of a penguin look like?

A day in the life of a penguin varies hugely depending on the time of year, especially during the breeding season, or when moulting. At other times of year, the birds spend their time foraging in the open ocean. During their annual moult, which usually lasts around 3 weeks, they are no longer waterproof so cannot go into the ocean to feed – instead they must stay on land living solely off their fat reserves. The breeding season is when they spend time on both land and sea. For most species, males and females share incubation of the egg/s and often take it in turns to go foraging to feed the hungry chick/s whilst the other parent stays to protect it/them. With some species, as the chicks get older, they are left in a crèche, or some stay in a burrow, allowing both parents to go to the ocean to collect food for their increasing appetites. The birds often leave at dawn when foraging, and the length of time they are away depends on how far they must swim to find food. For some species, warming ocean temperatures have shifted prey populations further from the colony leading to chick starvation and mass breeding failure. When the parents do return with food, some species engage their older chicks in long food chases before finally stopping to feed them. This is done to build up the strength of the chicks prior to fledging and is hilarious to watch. The adults then stay with their chicks at the colony overnight before the whole process starts again early the next morning.

A Gentoo penguin colony at sunset, Saunders Island, the Falklands.

You travelled around the world and have seen so many different places as a result of this project – what was your favourite memory and why?

This is such a hard question. I could say the very beginning of the mission on the Antarctic Peninsula with the sighting of my first penguin – this was a Chinstrap Penguin and has since become my favourite species, probably because the black strap under their chin makes it look as if they are smiling. Or I could go to the very end of the mission at Snow Hill Island with the Emperor Penguin colony, which was like being on the film set of the movie Happy feet and a very fitting and emotional accomplishment of Mission Penguin.

My favourite travel destination, however, is the Falkland Islands. With fewer than 4000 people, beautiful coastlines and over one million penguins of five species I’m sure you can understand why. My favourite island is Saunders Island and my favourite location there is ‘the neck’. The accommodation is very basic and although small can technically sleep 8 in 4 sets of narrow bunk beds. Incredibly, on my last visit, my friend Hazel and I were the only occupants – apart from the penguins of course! What a joy and privilege to be the only humans sharing their world and a memory that will stay with me forever.

The Neck, Saunders Island, The Falklands.

Having witnessed first-hand the negative effects of both climate change and human activity on penguin colonies, and their respective habitats, how can we work to protect these vital species in the future?

Penguins are key indicator species for the health of our oceans and the effects of global warming. Although there are no penguins naturally occurring in the Northern Hemisphere, our everyday actions here will ultimately filter down to the Southern Hemisphere and affect these animals.

One of the most threatened penguins is the African Penguin, and research suggests that this species could become extinct in the wild by 2035 unless we act now. Whilst we have little influence on African governments regarding marine ‘no-take’ zones, limiting coastal development, (oil refineries etc) can still help. For example, all of us can reduce our use of plastics (especially single use), and switch to renewable energy sources.

For more direct and immediate help we can also sponsor penguin nest boxes. African Penguins naturally lay their eggs in burrows which are dug out of layers of guano (bird poo!) laid down over hundreds of years. In the 1800’s most of this guano was collected and shipped to the UK to be used as fertiliser. As a result, there has been a 99% decline in the population over the last 100 years. As land temperatures continue to rise, penguins now nesting out in the open air are either dying from hyperthermia or abandoning their nests to save themselves, leading to mass breeding failure. Carefully researched and crafted nest-boxes that replicate the conditions of a guano burrow are proving effective – to help visit the Saving Penguins website.

A shortage of suitable nesting sites mean breeding African penguins are exposed to the full heat of the sun often with disastrous consequences.

Photographing every species of penguin is no small feat, especially alongside a full-time job! What were some of the biggest challenges you faced and what did you learn along the way?

When I announced to a friend that I was going to photograph every species of penguin in their natural habitat, I had no idea how many species there were or where they could be found. My research took me to places that I had never even heard of and to say many of them were ‘off the main tourist route’ would be an understatement! Simply getting to the required and often incredibly remote locations was definitely the first challenge. Many of these are also found in the roughest oceans in the world, and I suffer dreadfully from sea sickness. Needless to say, I was often very unwell but even that could not detract from the awe and wonder of these amazing expeditions. Once at the location, sometimes I only managed fleeting glimpses of just a few penguins of that species so not many photographs, but I appreciate how very lucky I was to actually see and photograph every penguin species on the first attempt.

The weather also presented significant challenges (especially the wind), and trying to photograph from a Zodiac (Rigid Inflatable Boat) while being tossed around in large swells was at times nigh on impossible. I also needed to keep my equipment warm in Antarctica and dry in the humidity of the Galápagos. Sunshine, although lovely in itself, also made photographing black and white birds more difficult than normal in terms of achieving correct exposure. I certainly learned to tolerate imperfections but also became a better photographer along the way. I also witnessed firsthand how tenacious and resilient penguins are – characteristics that we can all learn from.

The strong wind blowing the crests of these Moseley’s rockhopper penguins also made photographing them more challenging.

Mission Penguin came to fruition as a result of loss and grief, and throughout the book I found it heartwarming to read about the healing effects of your expeditions. How important do you think nature is in healing from grief, and what are the benefits of spending time exploring the natural world?

Nature is indeed an incredible healer. I have lovely memories of my mother taking us out on nature walks when we were young as we didn’t have much money, and nature was all around us and free! I think from that age I learned to appreciate the wonder of nature and delight in simple things, so when grief struck, getting out in nature and reconnecting with life and beauty was essential to my healing. Nature stimulates all of our senses which certainly helped me to feel fully alive even in the context of death. What inescapable joy to hear the birds singing, see the dappled light in a woodland glade, smell the flowers, taste the salty sea air, and hug a tree! Being immersed in the natural world really helps to put things into perspective and to feel part of something much greater than ourselves. In nature I feel fully grounded which gives me an inner peace and the strength to keep going, one step at a time.

Southern rockhopper penguins, Pebble Island, the Falklands.

What’s taking up your time at the moment? Are you working on any other projects or planning any upcoming expeditions that we can hear about?

Following the completion of Mission Penguin I have spent more time delighting in the natural world on my doorstep. In the last couple of years, I have finally taken up gardening, which my husband would have found hysterical having tried to persuade me all our married life! My focus however is gardening with wildlife in mind, and I think we would have had very different definitions of a ‘weed’! I am also rewilding one large area and quickly learned the hard way that rewilding is not the same as letting things go wild! I am still taking lots of nature photographs and readers can see more of my images here.

As well as writing the book, I started giving talks on Mission Penguin to local groups and this quickly expanded to other topics as they keep inviting me back for more. I now have about 6 talks in my repertoire so that is keeping me busy as well as continuing with my singing – another fabulous activity for wellbeing.

King penguins returning from a fishing trip.

I am a firm believer in making the most of every moment. We only have one life, so live it well. Fill it with friends, joy, laughter – and of course, penguins.

Enter our competition to be in with the chance of winning one of four exclusive Mission Penguin prints signed by author Ursula Franklin here – good luck!

Mission Penguin is available from our online bookstore here.

Book Review: Eight Bears

***** A mighty fine environmental reportage

Though bears loom large in our collective imagination, their flesh-and-blood counterparts are increasingly losing ground. Eight Bears, the debut of environmental journalist Gloria Dickie, draws on visits to key hotspots where Earth’s remaining bear species come into conflict with humans. By interviewing scores of people, both conservationists and those suffering at the paws of these large predators, this nuanced and thought-provoking reportage asks whether humans and bears can coexist.

The roots of this book go back to 2013 when Dickie started a master’s in environmental journalism and midway settled on bear-human conflicts in the Rocky Mountains. Since then, she has travelled to Asia and the Americas to see first-hand all eight extant bear species. The only obvious regions missing from her story are Alaska, Russia, and Europe, all of which have large populations of bears. Even so, she has visited a formidable list of destinations. As an aside here, kudos to both the stylish bear portraits by Arjun Parikh opening each chapter, and Dickie’s meticulous list of notes. The latter mentions the many people she has interviewed or corresponded with over the years and, for some sources, provides additional notes that are too detailed for the main narrative.

The first half of the book’s subtitle promises a look at the bear’s mythic past. Though there is mention here of the predominance of bears in northern hemisphere cultures, the so-called circumpolar bear cult tradition, and the rarely discussed role of the bear in Peruvian culture and history, this is a minor motif in the book. Much more can be and has been said about the cultural history of bears.

Three wild bears, one brown adult and two white cubs, sat by a streams edge, — Wild animals by bm.iphone via flickr.

Instead, as seems unavoidable when writing about megafauna nowadays, the focus of Eight Bears is on the second half of the subtitle, their imperilled future. The outlook is grim and Dickie early on mentions that “almost everywhere I went, bears seemed to be a shadow of what they once were” (p. 8). Probably the biggest threat is habitat loss, followed closely by hunting and poaching. A historic combination of these two decimated North American bear populations under European settlement. Polar bears have become the poster children of climate change, though the disappearance of sea ice is yet another form of habitat loss. I would be remiss if I did not mention that several whistleblowers have argued that hunting poses a continued but underappreciated threat to polar bears. Asia is additionally home to some particularly grisly practices: sloth bears are beaten into submission to become dancing bears, and moon and sun bears are experiencing years of, what is effectively, surgical torture on bile farms. The former has been outlawed with a reasonable degree of success, the latter less so. From her descriptions, Dickie visits the same bile farmer and speaks to some of the same people that Nuwer interviewed for her 2018 book Poached. Little seems to have improved in the intervening years, unfortunately.

Though bears are usually at the losing end of human-wildlife conflict, Dickie does not avoid exploring the flipside. Many readers outside of Asia might be surprised to learn that the inappropriately named sloth bear is easily the world’s most dangerous bear. In India, more than 100 attacks every year kill or gruesomely injure predominantly poor, rural people, with Dickie seeking out some of the victims. In the USA, where grizzly populations are recovering, she speaks to ranchers and farmers who lose livestock to bears and frequently object that “liberal urbanites are the ones who want predators back on the landscape, but they aren’t the ones suffering the consequences” (p. 177). In Canada, she visits the remarkable tourist town of Churchill at the edge of Hudson Bay which is home to equal numbers of humans and polar bears. To keep people safe while avoiding lethal control methods as much as possible, it relies on an unprecedented amount of technology. Even so, human lives are at risk, and Dickie speaks to a woman who survived a mauling.

Close up of a wet, muddy Grizzly bear in Denali National Park, Alaska, USA. — Full Grizz by Thomas, via flickr.

The chapters focusing on bears in the USA offer some of the most remarkable case studies of people attempting to live alongside bears. The century-long history of black bear management around Yosemite National Park offers “a full-scale experiment of all the ways people and bears can clash” (p. 153). After decades of park management doing things wrong (making a tourist attraction out of bears scavenging on garbage dumps, thus inadvertently training a generation of them how not to forage in the wild), they spent decades trying to do things right. A combination of bear-resistant food storage containers on campgrounds and strict enforcement of rules has trained tourists to be more mindful.

Eight Bears becomes more thought-provoking as it progresses. Here is how it provoked mine. Dickie puts down several relevant dots on paper at different points in the book (mentioning human population growth, climate change, and the resource-hungry global supply chain) but she does not explicitly connect them to draw the contours of the larger challenge ahead. So, here be a tangent, and my attempt to connect those dots, triggered by her repeated interviewing of grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen. Upon retirement in 2015, with grizzlies sufficiently recovered, he supported their delisting. However, by 2021, seeing how states were failing to manage grizzly populations “with maturity and grace” (p. 180), he changed his mind. This raises fundamental questions. What is the point of all our conservation efforts if we do not address the root causes that got threatened species in trouble in the first place? For me, books such as Abundant Earth and Alfie & Me have really driven home the point that, unless we change our relationship with the natural world and stop treating it as a bottomless larder, conservation is little more than a palliative solution, a stay of execution. If we restore animals to an increasingly degraded environment, to a human population that does not want to share the world with them, they will have to remain on permanent life support. To be clear, I do not think conservation is futile; it is vital. So long as it is not an end unto itself. We cannot lose sight of the bigger picture: a world hospitable to non-human animals. Servheen’s call for “maturity and grace” in the context of grizzly bear management can just as well be applied to our tenancy of this planet.

Wild Black Bear at Anan Bear Observatory. — Wild Black Bear at Anan Bear Observatory by Andrew Russell, via flickr.

Even if you were to come away from this book without having your thoughts similarly provoked, Eight Bears is a mighty fine environmental reportage that is nuanced and well-researched. Given the often regional nature of books on bears and people, Dickie’s globetrotting overview of the challenges faced by all extant bears is very welcome.

Author Interview with Guy Shrubsole: The Lie of the Land

Brought to you by the Sunday Times bestselling author Guy Shrubsole, The Lie of the Land discusses how a handful of wide-scale landowners are responsible for the destruction and degradation of our vital landscapes, painting a humbling picture of some of the most notable failures of land stewardship in Britain’s recent history. However, Guy also presents a glimmer of hope as he relays the stories of those trying to help nature recover, from small-scale farmers to community groups and individuals. In doing so he gives the public hope that we can all become custodians of the countryside once more.

Author portrait of Guy Shrubsole in a forest. — Photograph by Nick White

Guy Shrubsole is a researcher, writer and environmental campaigner who previously worked as an investigator for Friends of the Earth, and is co-founder of the Right to Roam movement. He was Policy and Campaigns Coordinator at Rewilding Britain for a number of years and has published a number of books including Who Owns England? and The Lost Rainforests of Britain.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Guy about The Lie of the Land, where we discussed what inspired him to write this book, how the privatisation of land has affected its conservation and preservation, what he hopes the reader can learn from his work and more.

Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write The Lie of the Land?

I’ve been thinking – and campaigning – about the issues in The Lie of the Land for some years. Witnessing moorland being deliberately set ablaze for the purposes of driven grouse shooting was an early spark; as was reading about the landowners who drained the Fens, and the vast wet commons that once dominated Cambridgeshire which teemed with fish, wildfowl and eels. In some ways The Lie of the Land is a natural sequel to my first book, Who Owns England? – taking its analysis that half of England belongs to just 1% of the population and looking at the ecological consequences of this.

Have there been any instances where private land ownership has benefitted the environment and increased its accessibility for the public, and if so, what can be taken from this?

Absolutely, I discuss in the book how there are some brilliant nature-friendly farmers and landowners doing great work – heroes like Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell with their rewilding work at Knepp, or Jake Fiennes at Holkham, or James Rebanks in the Lake District. But I argue that we can’t simply rely on these few ‘good stewards’ to turn the nature crisis around on their own. We need to call out bad practice (as Fiennes does in his book Land Healer) and make all landowners more accountable to the public for how they’re treating the land. Look at how England’s peat bogs – a vast natural store of carbon and a crucial national asset in the fight against the climate crisis – have been mistreated by the 150 or so estates that own them and set fire to them each October. Look at the institutional investors who own great swathes of the Fens – organisations like the Church Commissioners – and how they continue to profit from what is essentially a ‘carbon bomb’, the wasted peat soils of the fenland losing fertility and carbon with each passing year.

The trouble is, a lot of estates and lobby groups for landowners hide behind the assertion that they are the ‘custodians of the countryside’, who can be trusted to look after it without the need for public oversight or pesky environmental regulations. But as James Rebanks says, “I’m a very proud defender of good farming, but the ‘custodians of the countryside’ argument only washes if we are genuinely doing that – otherwise it’s self-serving nonsense.”

Those Blue Hills by Jim Roberts Gallery. — Those Blue Hills by Jim Roberts Gallery, via flickr.

What do you think needs to be implemented to increase the perceived viability of community land ownership and management, compared to privately owned spaces? And how do you think we can increase the quantity of community land ownership going forward?

We need to give communities the power to take ownership of more land, for starters. That means introducing a Community Right to Buy in England, like the one they’ve had in Scotland for the past twenty years – a set of powers that has led to communities buying up half a million acres of Scotland. I visit one such community buyout in the book, Langholm Moor – a former grouse moor that was bought by the people of Langholm a couple of years ago: they’re now turning it into a nature reserve. No more moorland burning, no more predator persecution: they’re going to re-wet the peat bogs and are allowing birch and rowan to naturally regenerate up the hillsides.

We need to have that opportunity in England, too. And the good news is, the new Labour government announced in its first King’s Speech that it will introduce a Community Right to Buy in England. But we’ll have to campaign hard to make sure it happens, and that landed interests don’t water it down. And we need to unlock our own imaginations, to start to dream bigger about how communities could take control of land and manage it for nature. As the Scottish land reform campaigner Alastair McIntosh has written, community ownership of land “creates a new constellation of possibility.” Let’s reach for the stars.

Les coquelicots by Dmitry Djouce, via flickr.

I particularly enjoyed your last book, The Lost Rainforests of Britain, and it really opened my eyes to the remarkable habitats around us that many people, like myself, never knew existed. Do you think landowners are aware of the importance, in some cases rarity, of the land they own? And how has the privatisation of the UK’s rainforests affected their conservation and preservation?

Thanks! I think an increasing number of landowners and farmers are now aware of temperate rainforests – after writing Lost Rainforests, one of the loveliest messages I got was from a Devon sheep farmer who had discovered the very rare Hazel Gloves fungus growing in an old hazel grove on her farm. And it’s been really encouraging to see such snowballing momentum to bring back Britain’s rainforests since the book was published – like the Wildlife Trusts announcing rainforest restoration projects from Skiddaw in Cumbria to West Muchlarnick in Cornwall, and the Cornish landowner Merlin Hanbury-Tenison doing great work on his farm at Cabilla.

Unfortunately, not all landowners recognise the importance of the habitats they own – even sometimes when they’ve been officially ‘notified’ of their existence through the land being designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). In the book I tell the story of the landowner who destroyed part of the River Lugg SSSI – and how his example is sadly only one of many instances since the first SSSIs were designated in the 1950s. Ultimately, if we’re to protect our remaining habitats, I think we cannot only rely on voluntary initiatives by enlightened owners, but have to give precious habitats strong legal protections – and make sure our environmental watchdogs, like Natural England, have real teeth.

What do you hope the reader can learn from your book?

I hope that readers get angry about the problems, take inspiration from the suggested solutions, and get out there and campaign for them to become reality!

Mar Lodge Estate by John Knight, via flickr.

The final chapter of your book details your 10-step proposal. At which point during the writing process did you develop these, and how did these recommendations adapt and evolve throughout the researching and writing process of The Lie of the Land?

In all of my books, I aim to set out clear political recommendations – for me the point of writing is not just to interpret the world, but to change it! From the outset I had quite a clear sense that all my recommendations in The Lie of the Land would be about how we can democratise decision-making over land, make landowners more accountable and give all of us a greater say over how land is used. That, to me, seems to be our last, best hope of turning the nature crisis around.

My own feelings of optimism about fixing this mess we’re in were definitely boosted by the conversations I had, and site visits I made in the process of researching the book. There are loads of communities yearning to look after land, loads of river guardian groups blowing the whistle on river pollution, and plenty of examples from other countries – and from our own nation’s history – of how we can protect and restore nature and do a better job than we are currently. But we need some policy changes at a national level to unlock these energies and scale them up. As William Gibson (allegedly) once said, ‘the future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.’

Are you working on any other books or projects that we can hear about?

Steady on – I’ve just written this one! Currently I’m enjoying meeting with lots of people across the country to get the ideas out there – and I am campaigning hard for these policy changes. I also work with the Right to Roam campaign (you can join our mailing list at www.righttoroam.org.uk). But I definitely would like to write more books in the future!

The Lie of the Land is available from our bookstore.

Author interview with Stephen Moss: The Starling

Marking the sixth volume in Stephen Moss’ Bird Biography series, The Starling delves into the fascinating life of one of our most talented and surprising birds. Starlings are renowned for their iridescent plumage, impressive vocal abilities and stunning murmurations, and this captivating tale explores how they’ve shaped our world, inspired art and music through the decades, influenced the agricultural industry and more.

Stephen is a naturalist, author and broadcaster well known for his work with the BBC Natural History Unit working on landmark programmes such as Springwatch and The Nature of Britain. He currently holds the position of senior lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University and is also president of the Somerset Wildlife Trust.

Stephen recently took time out of his busy schedule to answer some of our questions about his latest book The Starling, including what inspired him to write about this species, how his opinions of this bird has changed throughout the writing process and more.

The Starling marks the sixth volume in your bestselling Bird Biographies series. What inspired you to turn your attention to Starlings for this latest volume?

I always look for three things when it comes to choosing a subject for a bird biography.

First, does the species show some unusual or specific behaviour or habit which mark it out from other species? For example, the Robin’s habit of singing and holding territory in winter, the Wren’s bizarre breeding behaviour where the male builds several ‘cock’s nests’ for the female to inspect, or the Swallows’ epic migrations.

Second, does it have a strong cultural presence – in music, literature, mythology, popular culture and day-to-day society? Examples include the Robin’s association with Christmas, the Swallow’s position as a herald of spring, the Swan’s royal connections, and the owl’s reputation as a mysterious bird of the night.

And third, does the species relate to both me and the reader? Basically, is it one of Britain’s favourite birds, and if so, why? It also helps if I like the bird and have had a lifelong connection with it – which is true of all the species I have featured in the series so far – as then I can add personal anecdotes from my life as a birder.

Just like the previous subjects in the series – the Robin, Wren, Swallow, Swan, and owl(s), the Starling fits the bill in all three of these categories. It is a very sociable bird – more so than almost any other species during both the breeding season and in autumn and winter, when they gather in those famous murmurations. There are also plenty of historical and cultural references, including the fact that Mozart kept a pet starling which used to whistle his new compositions, and which he mourned in a solemn burial ceremony after it died. Most of all, we have a love-hate relationship with this bird, giving it a real ambivalence in our eyes – which makes it a fascinating subject for a book. And as you mention later on, like most of us, I grew up with Starlings. I now live on the Somerset Levels, just a stone’s throw from the famous winter gatherings, which I have now enjoyed for almost twenty years.

This book explores how starlings have influenced both farming and the arts throughout the years – were there any discoveries that surprised you on this line of inquiry?

The biggest surprise was that the widely known and oft-repeated story that Starlings were introduced into North America by a German emigrant who wanted to bring every bird mentioned in Shakespeare to the New World turns out to be mostly a myth! He wasn’t German (though he did come from a high-ranking New York family of German descent); he had no interest in Shakespeare, and most importantly he wasn’t the first person to release Starlings into the wild in the USA – that happened over 20 years earlier. Check out the chapter on ‘The Global Starling ‘to find out more details!

You mentioned having been around starlings for most of your life in the first chapter. Has your research and writing of this book altered your opinion of these birds?

Definitely! I do have a real soft spot for Starlings – though I also agree with the expert scientist Chris Feare that they look like second-hand car salesmen when they walk! I love the fact that they live alongside us but don’t really care about us – just going along with their day-to-day lives.

I also discovered a lot more about the science of their murmurations, and also about our human response to them, which ranges from loathing to love.

Finally, their ability to adapt to locations around the world where they have been introduced – including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as North America – is also very interesting, and again tells us a lot about our ambivalent attitudes towards these fascinating and often overlooked birds.

Starlings are often regarded with distaste and annoyance by many. Are there any common misconceptions impacting people’s perceptions of this overlooked species? And how can we move towards acceptance, and ideally, appreciation of these birds?

As my old friend and colleague Bill Oddie famously said, people think of Starlings as ‘bird table bullies’! And yet those same people who don’t like them in their garden love watching their spectacular murmurations! They are also often overlooked – like all common, familiar and widespread species, we tend to take them for granted.

Yet paradoxically, as we saw when another common and familiar bird, the House Sparrow, started to go missing from our towns and cities, when we begin to lose a species, we do begin to appreciate them more!

Starlings are in decline, and almost all urban roosts like the ones in the middle of London, including the famous one in Leicester Square that I used to see when I was growing up, are no more. Fortunately roosts in the wider countryside do appear to be making a bit of a comeback.

If anyone still doesn’t like Starlings, I would urge them to come down to Somerset on evenings between November and February, where we still get a quarter of a million or more Starlings murmurating together before going to roost on the Avalon marshes – it really is truly incredible!

How do you think the historical representation of ‘pest species’, such as Starlings, has affected our attitudes towards them, and how do you think we should approach the somewhat controversial topic of conservation vs agriculture vs pest control in the future?

I don’t like the word ‘pest’, though it is at least a bit less loaded than ‘vermin’! As I discuss in the book, Starlings have always been unpopular with farmers, even though they predate on many so-called insect pests in the soil, such as leatherjackets. They do eat fruit and can also cause problems with their droppings, but overall, I think they are less harmful than many people think.

I also believe that we tend to dislike species, especially those that live alongside us, that remind us of ourselves. This includes gulls, crows and of course starlings, which often seem to behave rather like us, and we don’t like that!

Starling Murmuration - Eastbridge. — Starling Murmuration – Eastbridge by Airwolfhound, via flickr.

I, along with many of your readers, will be excited to see where this series will go next. Have you begun working on the next book? And can you give us any clues as to what comes next?

I have, although I am taking a bit of a break from writing as I am trying to get a better work-life balance and travel to see birds around the world – including Starlings (exotic species in Africa and Asia as well as our own familiar species!). I have long wanted to do the House Sparrow, as it has such a fascinating historical relationship with human beings, and lives closer alongside us than any other species of bird. As a result – just like the Starling – we are very ambivalent towards it.

When we chose the Starling, we had a shortlist of three, the others being Skylark and Kingfisher; yet bizarrely, when I did an X/Twitter poll amongst 2,000 people, the vote split almost exactly to one third for each!

I can’t do some species that readers of the series have suggested, either because, like the Blackbird and Blue Tit, they don’t have very unusual or distinctive behaviour or cultural importance; or because others have already written similar (and excellent) books – such as Sam Lee on the Nightingale and Charles Foster and Sarah Gibson on the Swift.

Currently I am keen on either the Peregrine Falcon or the Puffin, both of which have really strong biological and cultural aspects to their lives – I’d be fascinated to hear which of these species NHBS customers – and your excellent staff – think I should choose!

STEPHEN MOSS is a lifelong birder, broadcaster and bestselling author, whose books have appeared in almost twenty different countries. The Starling is the sixth volume in his celebrated ‘Bird Biographies’ series, following the Robin, Wren, Swallow, Swan, and Owl – and of course The Twelve Birds of Christmas, which featured the dozen species in the famous festive carol. In total these have sold over 100,000 copies, and been translated into Dutch, German and Chinese.

The Starling is available to pre-order from our bookstore here.

Author interview with Richard A. Fortey: Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind

For years, Richard Fortey has found the uniqueness of fungi fascinating, from their strange forms, colours, reputation, rapid appearance and disappearance, to their often unseen role within the natural world. Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind takes the reader on an enthralling journey through Fortey’s forays searching for the strangest, most extraordinary and most delicious species. Focusing on a selection of the larger fungi and a handful of microfungi, this charming book celebrates their profusion, diversity and importance.

Richard Fortey is a palaeontologist, nature historian, writer and presenter who worked as the Natural History Museum’s senior palaeontologist until 2006. Richard has served on the councils of the Systematics Association, Palaeontographical Society, British Mycological Society and more. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1997 and was awarded an OBE in the 2023 New Years Honours for services to palaeontology and geology.

We recently spoke to Richard about his book, his first introduction to fungi, his hopes for the future of mycological research and more.

The fungal kingdom is enigmatic, and in recent years it has gripped the attention of naturalists and the wider public alike, thanks to books such as this one. Do you remember your first introduction to fungi that sent you on this path of discovery?

As a child in Ealing on the fringes of London, we were lucky enough to have a large garden. I remember wondering at a great clump of glistening ink caps that appeared around a rotting stump – apparently overnight. In a day or two they had turned into a black soup. About the only book available then (I must have been about ten years old) was The Observer’s Book of Mushrooms and Toadstools, but I managed to identify our stump fungus as Coprinus micaceus. Finding others in the book became a challenge.

Fungi are everywhere, spores floating through the air, mycelial networks underneath our feet, and even in the deep ocean. Can you describe one of your most unexpected encounters with the fungal kind whilst compiling this book?

At my sister-in-law’s house in the rainforest of New South Wales, there were a host of fungi on the ground and on fallen trees. One of them growing on a trunk seemed to be an old and edible friend – the Oyster Mushroom. But when I went out in the dark, I was amazed to see it glowing with a ghostly greenish light. It was an Aussie double of our oyster, and a decidedly poisonous one. I used a photo of it taken by its own light in the book, and it still looks quite unearthly even now I know its identity.

You open the book describing an enchanting trip to the hills of northern Italy for a celebration of the foragers’ favourite, the Bolete. If you were to organise a mycologically focused celebration in the UK, which location would you choose?

When it is in top form it is hard to beat the New Forest for variety and number of species. Boletes used to abound there, and every kind of milkcap and brittlegill still does, and it is about the only place to see the extraordinary Nail Fungus emerging from pony dung.

In your book, you allude to the challenges of understanding taxonomy as a novice or intermediate mushroom fan through the lens of species names. However, you also highlight the importance of both binomial nomenclature and common vernacular names. Do you have a favourite species name, both scientific and common? And to take this further do you have any personal/pet names that you find yourself using for species?

The common small bracket that grows in tiers on dead logs is known as the Turkey Tail – and it really does look like a fanned-out tail of this big bird, with a neat white rim and a neatly zoned dark upper surface. The best scientific name really doesn’t beat around the nomenclatural bush, and it must be Phallus impudicus. The Stinkhorn indeed resembles an upright human reproductive organ and even retains a distinctively scrotal sac at its base. And it smells like rotting meat – the species name refers to that. As for pet names, my young nephew always referred to the beautiful but poisonous scarlet Fly Agaric as “Killer Diller” – and that name seems to have stuck.

As someone with a long career in the sciences, a lifelong mycologist, and an inspiring naturalist, which direction would you like to see mycology take in the next few years as it expands as both a field of research and a subject of interest?

There’s no question that DNA studies are taking mycology into a new direction – not least enabling us to ‘see’ fungi even without having their fruitbodies, for example, by sampling soils in different habitats. I believe that fungi are even better indicators of environmental health than our plants, and I really hope that conservation bodies – and farmers – realize that they need to fully recognize the contribution of fungi to total biodiversity. There are so many different species that identification often poses a challenge, and I personally welcome the development of apps to help, but there is no substitute for getting down on hands and knees on the forest floor. If a fraction of those who make birds their hobby took up mycology it would do no end of good to public awareness.

Finally, what’s occupying your time at the moment? Are you working on any other projects that you can tell us about?

I have had an ongoing project raising fungus gnats – which are also very diverse. One large fungus can feed a hundred tiny flies, and these in turn feed insectivores. Their importance in the food chain has been underestimated. Which species of fungi feed which gnats is still incompletely known, however this is the kind of project I can do in a small woodland like my own.

Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind is available from our online bookstore.

Book Review: What a Bee Knows

***** Tells fascinating tales of bee biology

Leon Vlieger, NHBS Catalogue Editor

The collectives formed by social insects fascinate us, whether it is bees, ants, or termites. But it would be a mistake to think that the individuals making up such collectives are just mindless cogs in a bigger machine. It is entirely reasonable to ask, as pollination ecologist Stephen Buchmann does here, What a Bee Knows. This book was published almost a year after Lars Chittka’s The Mind of a Bee, which I reviewed previously. I ended that review by asking what Buchmann could add to the subject. Actually, despite some unavoidable overlap, a fair amount.

Though I will leave a comparison and recommendation for the end of this review, I can already tell you that What a Bee Knows is a different beast altogether. Buchmann’s approach to convincing you that bees are sophisticated insects is to provide a general and wide-ranging introduction to bee biology, telling you of all the things they get up to.

What makes this introduction accessible to a broad audience is that Buchmann goes back to first principles. For starters, what even is a bee, and where did they come from? You might not realise that they evolved from carnivorous predatory wasps and likely did so some 130 million years ago, not long after the evolution of flowering plants. Another basic aspect Buchmann highlights is how myopically focused we are on social bees. The thing is, 80% of all 20,000+ described bee species are solitary. Their biology is the more representative one and Buchmann discusses examples from their lonesome lives throughout this book, many based on his observations working in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and elsewhere. He reminds the reader that “we should not think of honey bees as the pinnacle of bee evolution toward which all bee species strive” (p. 32). Theirs is the exception; a high-risk, high-reward strategy to making a living on this planet.

A close up of a bee in flight flying across grass. — Bee in-flight, by Nikk on Flickr.

This approach of introducing basic concepts is applied throughout the book. Thus, we get a brief tour of the gross anatomy of the bee brain, but not before Buchmann explains the basics of the human brain and the structure and workings of neurons. An introduction to sexual selection prefixes the discussion on the many sexual escapades of bees: from scramble competition in cactus bees involving bee brawls (which is exactly what it sounds like), to hilltop lekking in carpenter bees, to alternative reproductive tactics with different male morphs in Centris pallida. Bees can learn to solve problems, improve their performance, and even learn new tricks from other bees, but what is this process called learning, and how widespread is it? Similarly, chapters on sleep, pain, and consciousness all first discuss more broadly what these are and what we know about them in humans and other vertebrate and invertebrate organisms.

Buchmann is a pollination ecologist by training and he cannot help but indulge in a long chapter on pollination. He is on form here and gleefully reminds readers that, next to billboards for pollinators, “flowers are unabashedly plant genitals exposed on a stem for all to see” (p. xiii), while bees act as “surrogate flying flower penises” (p. 78). Though it is traditionally held up as a wholesome form of mutualism, it has elements of an arms race too. As Jeff Ollerton also points out, active pollination, where a pollinator deliberately places pollen on a flower’s stigma, is extremely rare. Rather, the norm is that both pollinators and flowers have their own interests (food and pollination), at heart first and foremost. Sometimes both parties will benefit, but this is not a given. Orchids trick male bees into pseudocopulation with flowers that look and smell just like female bees, dusting them in pollen in the process without offering any nectar. At the other extreme, carpenter bees have become nectar robbers, using their jaws to cut into flowers at their base to access nectar, and thus not providing pollination services. And here is an interesting recent development: studies on the bee microbiome suggest that bees derive some of the microbial life that populates their gut from the flowers on which they forage. In some cases, the proteins contributed by flower microbes might be more nutritious than the pollen grains.

A solitary bee coming out of a nest in the ground with grass and clover around it. — A solitary bee, by Nikk on Flickr.

A chapter on sensory biology is, of course, obligatory and Buchmann covers all relevant topics: the trichromatic vision of bees that extends into the ultraviolet, their perception of polarized light used in navigation, their excellent smell, their hearing (which is more a detection of pressure waves at close range), their taste and tactile senses, their to-us-alien detection of electrical charges (and the electrostatic footprints bees leave on flower petals after a visit), and the still contentious topic of magnetoreception. What was new to me is that the two mobile antennae produce a three-dimensional impression of an odour field, and some nifty experiments that involved crossing their antennae resulted in bees persistently walking away from the source of a smell, indicating that they really do smell in stereo.

Though an accessible and enjoyable romp into bee biology, I do have a few minor quibbles. There is a limited number of general black-and-white illustrations and photos, and the reproduction of the latter is so-so as this is a print-on-demand book. And though What a Bee Knows avoids getting too technical, I do feel that in some places Buchmann wanders a bit off-piste from exploring the inner world of bees into more general fascinating tales of bee biology. Nevertheless, the book achieves its mission of instilling a renewed respect and a better understanding of how bees live.

Having now reviewed both Chittka’s The Mind of a Bee and Buchmann’s What a Bee Knows, how do they compare and which one should you read? Both books broadcast the same message loud and clear: bees are darn sophisticated creatures and even individually are far smarter and more capable than you might initially give them credit for. As mentioned, Buchmann goes back to first principles on many topics and wanders into bee biology more generally, while I remarked that Chittka delivers an information-dense book with numerous explanatory illustrations that is very focused in its approach, talking bees, bees, and the occasional other hymenopteran. Consequently, Buchmann does not delve as deeply into many subjects, though he does discuss some experiments in detail (including Chittka’s work on several occasions). My recommendation would be that general readers with little background in biology or entomology pick, or first start with, What a Bee Knows. Biologists, in particular entomologists, might want to skip straight to Chittka’s The Mind of a Bee and get stuck in the wealth of detail there.

What a Bee Knows by Stephen Buchmann is available from our online bookstore.