Books – Page 12 – Hoopoe

Book Review: Goshawk Summer: The Diary of an Extraordinary Season in the Forest

Winner of the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2022.

Chronicled in Goshawk Summer: The Diary of an Extraordinary Season in the Forest, wildlife cameraman James Aldred is given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to film a goshawk nest during the first few months of the pandemic. Having just completed a migration himself, returning home after filming a cheetah family in Kenya, he was commissioned to begin filming in the New Forest. However, after the adventures of finding a suitable nest and planning how to set up the shoot, lockdown began. The everyday hustle and bustle of everyone going about their daily lives stopped. In the spring months of 2020, with everyone staying at home, no cars on the road, the absence of aeroplane vapour trails crisscrossing the sky, an eerie quiet descended. And perhaps most importantly, lockdown meant no more visitors to the New Forest – except for James.

After harpy eagle attacks, being chased by venomous snakes, and almost being knocked out of a tree by an elephant, you’d think Aldred wouldn’t have much excitement for our native wildlife. However, the awe that Aldred has for not just goshawks but for many of our species shines through in this book. For all its named ‘Goshawk Summer’, this book reads like an ode to the threatened aspects of Wild Britain. It is a whistle-stop tour of our countryside, from instructions on the management of heathland and the place muntjac have in our ecosystems, to the plight of the Dartmoor warbler, pine martens, and the curlew, and even the cultural relationship we have with foxes.

Northern goshawk chick by Andrey Gulivanov via Flickr

The wealth of experience he has gained over 25 years of working in the industry is clear throughout this book. Passages are filled with rich tidbits of wildlife encounters, such as the time he found all six native reptile species in one morning. Each sighting and mention of a species is accompanied by a short tale or a piece of history. Often, these sightings are compared to Alred’s experiences with more exotic ones, such as the pine marten with the yellow-throated marten in Borneo, a group of tumbling fox cubs with the cheetah family in Kenya, and the goshawk as “our very own mini-harpy”. It is a welcome reminder that UK wildlife can be just as magical and mysterious as that of far-flung places.

Written from field notes kept at the time, the internationally experienced wildlife cameraman dives into the wildlife of his childhood haven of the New Forest. He describes the lack of human activity and disturbance as a glimpse into paradise, which, through his engaging observations, we too can experience. The goshawks are the true highlight of this book, as Aldred gives us a window into the seemingly timeless forest away from the jumble and stress of modern life. Following the weeks and months of Aldred’s shoot, we see the day-to-day workings of a goshawk nest and the trials and tribulations of a species once hunted to extinction. While watching the development from eggs to fully fledged juveniles, Aldred tells the history of this previously highly persecuted species.

As lockdown eased and travel was allowed, the spell is broken and it seems that suddenly everyone is using natural spaces. Car parks and roads fill and forest paths become alive with walkers, music and cyclers. Unfortunately, while many reported this as the public’s increasing appreciation for our natural landscapes, Aldred has a different opinion. With the pandemic always running in the background, he documents the impacts of the sudden rush to reenter the world. From the increase in noise, litter, risky barbeques, irresponsible drivers and dog owners, the newfound peace of the New Forest seems shattered. The forest is described as a habitat that “has been abused for centuries” and Aldred reaffirms the emerging narrative that we should step back to give nature space to breathe and recover. Throughout Goshawk Summer, Aldred issues a strong call for people to be more conscious and considerate of their behaviour in nature, particularly around nesting bird season.

Returning in February 2021, almost eight months after watching the goshawk chicks fledge, Aldred once again encounters the goshawk female. He notes a feeling of elsewhereness within the forest, of outside being England and inside “somewhere much further north”. Goshawk Summer mirrors this, providing a fascinating glimpse into the perspective of a wildlife cameraman and a welcome break from the clutter of the outside world. This book was awarded the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2022.

Goshawk Summer: The Diary of an Extraordinary Season in the Forest
By: James Aldred
Paperback | June 2022

James Lovelock Obituary

James Lovelock 1919–2022

We have recently received the sad news of the passing of James Lovelock, an environmentalist, chemist, futurist and the creator of the Gaia hypothesis.

Born in 1919, he attended the University of Manchester at age 21 and graduated with a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1948, becoming an independent scientist in 1961. He had since been awarded honorary degrees from several institutions, including the University of Exeter, Stockholm University and the University of Colorado Boulder. His career was varied, from travelling aboard the research vessel RRS Shackleton to working on developing scientific instruments for NASA, and even performing cryopreservation experiments.

Lovelock was the first person to detect Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere after developing an electron capture detector in the late 1960s. CFCs are nontoxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of products such as aerosol sprays, and are used as solvents and refrigerants. Their role in the depletion of the ozone layer led to their inclusion in the Montreal Protocol, which worked to phase out several substances to protect the ozone layer. During his time aboard the RRS Shackleton, Lovelock measured the concentration of CFC-11 from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic. These experiments provided the first useful data on the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere, though the damage these cause was not discovered until the 1970s, by Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina.

James Lovelock was also known for his Gaia hypothesis. This hypothesis, first created in the 1960s, proposed that the complex interacting system of the Earth’s biotic and abiotic parts could be considered as a single organism. Drawing from research by Alfred C. Redfield and G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Lovelock formulated that living organisms interact with the non-living environment to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system, by co-evolving with their environment. He suggested that the whole system, including the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and pedosphere, seeks an environment optimal for life. This evolution is facilitated through a cybernetic feedback system that is unconsciously operated by the biota, leading to a final ‘state’ of full homeostasis.

While the Gaia hypothesis is generally accepted by many in the environmentalist community, there has been some criticism, particularly from the scientific community. Lovelock later made revisions to the hypothesis to clarify that there was no conscious purpose within this self-regulating system and to bring the hypothesis into alignment with ideas from other fields, such as systems ecology. This had reduced criticism, but there still remains scepticism from the scientific community.

Lovelock wrote more than 200 scientific papers as well as a number of books on a variety of topics within chemistry, environmentalism, geophysiology, climate change and more. Lovelock’s work has been recognised a number of times, receiving awards such as the Tswett Medal in 1975, the Dr A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences in 1990 and the Royal Geographical Society Discovery Lifetime Award in 2001. He was also appointed a member of the Commander of the Order of the Britsh Empire for services to the study of Science and the Atmosphere in 1990 and a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to Global Environmental Science in 2003. In 2006, he was awarded the Wollaston Medal, an achievement also received by Charles Darwin.

Bruno Comby, CC BY-SA 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons

James Lovelock: 26th July 1919–26th July 2022

Book Review: Fen, Bog & Swamp by Annie Proulx

Fen, Bog & Swamp, from Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Proulx, is a wide ranging book that meanders through the subject of wetlands on a journey which encompasses history, biology, language, culture, art and literature. Written in a passionate and lyrical voice, the book is not only a thorough exploration of these ecosystems, but also a war cry in their defence, although one that at times feels dampened by the assumption of inevitable defeat. This is echoed in a statement in which she describes her intentions behind the writings and research: “Before the last wetlands disappear I wanted to know more about this world we are losing. What was a world of fens, bogs and swamps and what meaning did these peatlands have…”.

The book is arranged into four loose parts: an introduction of “discursive thoughts on wetlands”, followed by individual chapters covering fens, bogs and swamps. Beginning the text with a description of a fond yet distant memory of walking through a swamp with her mother as a child in 1930s Connecticut, which she describes as her “first thrill of entering terra incognita”, Proulx goes on to bemoan the disinterest of modern humans in “seeing slow and subtle change” and the “slow metamorphoses of the natural world”. In our fast-paced lives in which speed and efficiency are hailed as the twin gods of progress, there are few who can, or desire to, repetitively observe the same flowers, trees or waters, week after week, season after season, or to appreciate the myriad yet microscopic ways in which they change. For this reason, evidence for a warming climate and its impending crisis have been easy to ignore until the impacts are so visible that they can no longer be shuffled under the carpet.

Strumpshaw Fen. Image by Michael John Button via Flickr.

As a reader based in Britain, I found the section on fens to be of particular interest, despite the fact that their story is ultimately one of destruction and decline. These days it is hard to imagine a Britain in which 6% of the land was wetland, all of which provided a “source of wealth that could hardly be surpassed by any other natural environment”. Now, in modern Britain, less than 1% of the original fenlands remain: a mere fragment of this once great and diverse habitat.

Proulx’ wonderful descriptions of the people who lived in the fens and how an intimate knowledge of its creeks, rivers and mudflats allowed them to thrive in this challenging landscape are particularly pleasing. Using descriptions of artwork and quotations from literature (such as the Moorlandschaften photographs of Wolfgang Bartels and Gertrude Jekyll’s wonderful vignette on the use of rush-lights) Proulx paints a vivid picture, not only of the historical landscape, but also of the lives of the people inhabiting them.

In fact, these diversions into the lives of the people who have impacted and been impacted by wetlands occur frequently throughout the text, and are used to great effect to provide an insight into changing minds and cultures. From stories of the 16th century Spanish explorers to those of naturalist Henry Thoreau and botanist William Bartram, the book is littered with potted biographies that tell the stories of the people who were fascinated by these landscapes, as well as the darker sides of exploitation and greed.

Through the telling of these stories, it becomes apparent that fens, bogs and swamps have long been derided by humans. This is exemplified by the pre-15th century British fen dwellers who were “literally and metaphorically looked down on” by the upland people in a manner that was reflected in their view of the fenlands themselves. Also mirrored in the attitude of European settlers in the US who despised the swamps for slowing down movement and progress and limiting productive agriculture, wetlands throughout the world have consistently been viewed as ‘waste, unproductive’ areas, in need of ‘improvement’.

Time and time again we have blundered around in the name of progress, attempting to drain, farm, reforest and develop these regions with little knowledge of how to maintain them afterwards, or even whether this is possible. Indeed, as is now apparent in areas such as New Orleans and Chicago, where the water is slowly taking back the land, the fight against nature is likely to be a long drawn-out game that we are unable to win.

New Orleans swamp. Image by ataelw via Flickr.

As you might expect from someone whose life has been concerned with words, Proulx pays a lot of attention to the language surrounding fens, bogs and swamps. Highlighting such examples as the equally pleasing Pocosin (swamp) or Muskeg (bog), she also draws parallels between the loss of these habitats and the loss of the language that we can usefully use to describe them. In a manner that has also been highlighted by writers such as Robert MacFarlane in Landmarks and The Lost Words, it seems that this is a two way street: as we lose the habitats, we also chip away at the list of nouns and adjectives that are used to describe them; but equally, with the loss of this nuanced language, we also begin a process of forgetting and dismissing the landscapes themselves.

I came away from reading this book with a new appreciation of fens, bogs and swamps, but also saddened by the fact that, as Oliver Rackham stated, the long history of wetlands is ultimately a story of their destruction. As Proulx simply states in her final lines, in an echo of those words from Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It, perhaps the time is coming when we will all be “haunted by waters”.

Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis is available for pre-order from NHBS and is due for publication in September 2022.

Phenology Series: Summer

For those of us living where there are four distinct seasons, summer is the period of long, warmer days where the skies, fields, lakes and mountains are alive with the busy activities of plants and animals at the peak of their growing year. Most of the animals that have hatched or been born earlier this year will be beginning to fend for themselves, while many plant species will be coming to the end of their flowering period and preparing to produce seed in an effort to ensure their survival and proliferation.

The combination of warmer weather and longer daylight hours makes this the perfect time to get out and about and experience the beauty and complexity of the natural world.

This is the second in our seasonal phenology series where you can explore a carefully chosen collection of ID blogs, books, equipment and events, all designed to help you make the most of a summer outside. Check out our spring blog and don’t forget to look out for our autumn blog in September.

Identification guides:

What you might see:

• Hedgerows and verges are still home to lots of flowering plants, although the frothy drifts of cow parsley are now coming to an end. Honeysuckle can be seen blooming from June, providing a night-time food source for moths such as the Elephant Hawkmoth (Deilephila elpenor).

• Bee orchids (Ophrys apifera) will flower briefly in June and July on dry, chalk and limestone grasslands, while sea cliffs will be adorned with the delicate blush of sea thrift (Armeria maritima) from April to October.
• Auks, such as Razorbills (Alca torda), Guillemot (Uria aalge), Puffins (Fratercula arctica) and Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), come to their cliff nests in spring to lay their eggs. They can still be seen (and heard!) throughout the summer as they make frequent trips out to sea to catch food for their young. Further inland, summer visitors such as Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), Wood Warblers (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) and Pied Flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) are wonderful to catch a glimpse of.

• June to August is an important time for ladybirds. During this period, mated females will lay their eggs which then hatch into larvae and form pupae through a series of four stages, or ‘instars’. Adult ladybirds emerge from the pupae in August.
• Wasps, bumblebees, honeybees and butterflies are all active in the summer and will feed as much as possible while the weather is fine. Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) and Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterflies can both be frequently seen around nettles where they like to lay their eggs.
• Frogs and toads spend their days keeping cool in damp and shady areas and are often found in overgrown areas of the garden during the summer. This year’s froglets and toadlets will remain in the water until late summer.

• The summer months are a great time to spot bats hunting for insects during the dusk and dawn hours. Female bats give birth to their young in June and within three weeks these juveniles will be learning to fly themselves. By August the youngsters will no longer need their mother’s milk and will be hunting for their own food.

Activities:

Upcoming events

Big Butterfly Count – 15th July to 7th August
British Dragonfly Week – 16th to 24th July
National Marine Week – 23rd July to 7th August
International Bat Night – 27th to 28th August

Essential equipment and books:

Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland

This beautifully illustrated and comprehensive field guide shows moths in their natural resting postures. It also includes paintings of different forms, underwings and other details to help with identification.

Britain’s Reptiles and Amphibians: A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands

This detailed guide to the reptiles and amphibians of Britain, Ireland and the Channel Isles is designed to help anyone identify a lizard, snake, turtle, tortoise, terrapin, frog, toad or newt with confidence.

The Wild Flower Key: How to Identify Wild Flowers, Trees and Shrubs in Britain and Ireland

This essential wild flower guide is packed with identification tips and high-quality illustrations, as well as innovative features designed to assist beginners. The text aims to be as useful as possible for those working in conservation and includes a compilation of the latest research on ancient woodland indicator plants.

NHBS Moth Trap

A lightweight and highly portable trap, tested and approved by Butterfly Conservation. This mains-powered trap runs a single 20W blacklight bulb (included) and comes supplied with a 4.5m power lead with UK plug.

Kite Ursus Binoculars

These affordable binoculars have been designed for everyday use and have a robust housing, great field of view and produce a bright, colour-balanced image.

Magenta Bat 5 Bat Detector

A handheld super-heterodyne bat detector with an illuminated easy-to-read LCD frequency display. This fantastic entry-level detector converts ultrasonic bat calls into a sound that is audible to humans, allowing you to listen to and identify the bats flying around you.

Browse our full collection for more field guides and equipment highlights.

Book Review: Abundance: Nature in Recovery by Karen Lloyd

Abundance: Nature in Recovery is a collection of essays by award-winning author, Karen Lloyd. Examining abundance and losses in the natural world, Lloyd laments the lack of sight humanity has for the holes we have created. Looking first at artists such as Mary Newcomb, Carry Akroyd, and Daniel Beltrá, the book begins with the struggles of those trying to draw attention to the damaging impacts of human encroachment on the natural world. While many are beginning to understand the harm we are causing, the momentum of our modern society hasn’t allowed us to stop. By recounting a moment when a willow warbler flies into her house, Lloyd compares the fight of individual people against the systems we operate under with the panicked movements of the bird battering against the glass. We, like the bird, have no perception of how to remove ourselves from ‘the world of window frames and glass’ that we inhabit.

Abundance aims to give a voice to the species and habitats that are often disregarded in the political sphere. Travelling to places such as the Veluwe Forest in Switzerland, the Strathspey woodland in Scotland and the Hungarian Steppe, Lloyd tells the stories of people on the front line of conservation fighting to halt biodiversity loss. The volume of negative environmental news can often be overwhelming, and the author shares her own experience of this feeling in the opening essay. This book is a welcome break, reminding us that conservation success is possible and is taking place right now across Europe.

Beaver felled tree by Corey Burger via Flickr

Through the exploration of local attitudes to conservation efforts, Lloyd touches on current themes such as rewilding and the return of wolves to the UK. Shifting baselines, where the current generation believes what they are seeing in nature around them is the norm and are unaware of the decline over previous generations, are impacting people’s perspective on the return of previously extinct species. Despite some extinctions being relatively recent, such as the beaver, the general public is unused to living with them. Therefore, they fear the impact these species may have on their daily lives. Worries of damage to livelihood and homes have been exacerbated by misconceptions and scapegoating. Lloyd recounts the concerns people have for the threatened wild salmon should beavers be allowed to remain, despite beavers being obligate herbivores, as well as the attempt to blame beavers for a flash flooding event in Alyth, Scotland. But if we are to allow the natural world to recover from the damage we have inflicted upon it, Lloyd believes that nature needs to be placed centre-stage in everything we do.

Wild salmon by Bureau of Land Management via Flickr

Abundance is an engaging and accessible book, presenting personal accounts of seeing firsthand the impacts of anthropomorphic destruction, riveting natural history stories and shocking data. From the conflict between the need for clean energy sources and the impacts of wind farms on birds to the impact of flood protection on beavers and kingfishers, Lloyd discusses our struggle to find effective solutions to tackle our biodiversity crisis. The engaging and entertaining nature of this book only increases as you read. Comparable to a travel book, each essay is a new adventure in wildlife-rich places. From eighty fragments on the pelican to tales from viewing platforms in the Lake District and the adventure of the 2020 lockdowns, the variety will hold your attention until the very end.

Abundance: Nature in Recovery
By: Karen Lloyd
Hardback | September 2021

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Testing the Guide: An Identification Guide to Garden Insects of Britain and North-West Europe

Our second article in our Testing the Guide series looks at An Identification Guide to Garden Insects of Britain and North-West Europe, a photographic identification guide to 150 species of garden insects most commonly found in Britain and north-west Europe.

This guide includes an introduction covering how to attract insects to your garden, advice on photographing insects, a description of insect anatomy, the characteristics of the insect orders included in the guide, and the insect lover’s year, describing the best places to look for different species throughout the different months and seasons of the year.

From there, each species is presented, grouped by order, with keenly observed descriptions to help you identify even the smallest creature, as well as one or two photographs labelled with distinguishing features. In each of these sections, there are details of its life cycle from egg to adult, a calendar showing the time of year when the adult can be seen, and star facts that give further proof of insects’ fascinating lives.

Using the guide

Throughout March, April and May, we tested the identification guide by exploring a garden for a few hours during the day and during the night. The garden is small, with a patch of lawn, bare dirt, a hedgerow of mainly ivy (Hedera helix) and holly (Ilex aquifolium), stone gravel, Japanese camellia (Camellia japonica) and rhododendron (Rhododendron sp.) bushes, a field maple tree (Acer campestre), clumps of daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) and three-cornered garlic (Allium triquetrum), as well as various other flowering and non-flowering plants. This garden also contains a small insect house which was placed in September of last year. Weedkiller was used once in September but no other chemicals have been used since, nor has the lawn been mowed. Therefore, the garden should be able to support a number of insect species. We attempted to search by eye and by using a tapping tray and stick. Compared to just searching by eye, we found that we had little success with tapping as the vast majority of what we found were spiders and we were unable to identify the few insect species we found using this guide.

What we found

Following the guide, we were able to ID this species as a marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus), a small, delicate hoverfly with a unique pattern of twin dark bands separated by lighter bands. As this individual doesn’t have ‘holoptic’ eyes – eyes that meet at the top of the head – we believe this is a female.

This guide has a large section on butterflies and moths, covering a number of common species you’ll likely see in your garden and local green spaces. This species is a speckled wood (Parage aegeria), identifiable through its dark colouration and the spots on its hindwing, which have a yellow outer ring, a black inner ring and a white central spot. According to the guide, it is a distinctive species, and there are no similar species listed. However, for those unfamiliar with these species, their underwing pattern could potentially be confused with other butterflies such as walls (Lasiommata megera) or graylings (Hipparchia semele).

This is a dock bug (Coreus marginatus), a small insect from the family Coreidae. According to the guide, they’re common and widespread in Europe, but in Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, they’re restricted to the southern parts. They’re identifiable through their shape (upturned, pointed pronotum and broad abdomen with a noticeable scutellum), their red-orange antennae with a black final segment, and their pale-brown colouration. There is variation in the wing membrane colour between individuals, and an important diagnostic feature that can distinguish it from other similar species is the forward-pointing spines between its antenna. This feature can be most easily identified using a hand lens, handheld magnifier or magnifying pot.

This similar-looking species is a (common) green shieldbug (Palomena prasina). Despite its name, this species can range from bright green to bronze, particularly becoming darker prior to winter hibernation. Its brown wing membranes set it apart from similar, non-native species, such as the southern green shieldbug (Nezara viridula), as noted in the guide. If you are able to look closely at one, you’ll be able to see it is covered in tiny black dots, with red eyes, feet and antennae (primarily the last two segments). It can also have a red edge all the way around its thorax and abdomen.

We also managed to spot this colourful species, which we were able to ID using the guide as a common malachite beetle (Malachius bipustulatus). The red ‘shoulders’ and red spots on the end of the abdomen, helpfully annotated in the guide’s photo, made this species easy to identify.

Using this guide, we were also able to identify a scorpionfly, bluebottle, greenbottle, dark-edged bee-fly, thick-legged flower beetle, two-spot ladybird and a buff-tailed bumblebee.

Our opinion

As noted in the introduction to this guide, there are around 24,000 insect species in Britain, and almost three times that in mainland Europe. And so there will always be species you find in your garden that are not in this field guide, which covers only 150 species. The breadth of the species covered within the guide perhaps could’ve been expanded, but as it does cover many of the most common species, you are still likely to see a number of these species within your garden and local green spaces. In addition, the paired-down number of species can be useful, as it can be quicker and easier for readers to accurately identify species they’ve found. Therefore, this is still an incredibly useful guide, particularly for naturalists, beginners and those who want a more concise and affordable insect field guide.

An Identification Guide to Garden Insects of Britain and North-West Europe
Dominic Couzens and Gail Ashton

Book Review: Birds, Beasts and Bedlam by Derek Gow

Birds, Beasts and Bedlam: Turning My Farm into an Ark for Lost Species is an eclectic mix of stories from Derek Gow’s past and from the varied people he’s met and worked with. Opening with an account of his expedition to see bison in Poland, Gow laments the loss of ‘great beasts’ from Britain. We’ve lost much of our megafauna, including steppe bison; aurochs; brown, polar and cave bears; Eurasian and Irish elk; lynx; and wolves. Some of these losses, along with the current rate of habitat destruction, have drastically changed how our ecosystems function.

Derek Gow is a reintroduction expert, farmer and author, best known for his work with beavers, white storks, water voles and wildcats. His first natural history book, Bringing Back the Beaver, was a highly acclaimed success, detailing his firsthand account of the reestablishment of beavers in waterways across England and Scotland. Following Gow’s rewilding and farming adventures, from his first attempt at keeping livestock as a child to his time working at zoos and captive breeding programmes, Gow’s new memoir describes his battles with creating a viable farm and how he is repairing the damage this caused to the land and wildlife.

In 2006, Gow bought a farm next to his property in South Devon. In chapter three ‘Not a Lark or a Lizard Lived There’, Gow details the quiet decline of wildlife on his farm and his slow realisation of the damage he caused by following conventional farming practices. He tells of his final straw moment, when a small mammal trapping course run on his land only turned up two woodmice. The lack of voles indicated a much wider absence of wildlife within the farm, such as the loss of barn owls and kestrels.

Male kestrel offering a vole to a female. Image by Francesco Veronesi via Flickr

After realising the damage that was occurring, Gow started to deconstruct his farm, selling off his livestock and began to try to rejuvenate the land. Through excavations, fencing and accidental escapees, a complex series of watercourses and wetlands were created. Birds, otters, amphibians and insects started to return. But this wasn’t enough. Gow introduced Heck cattle, Iron Age pigs (a hybrid of wild boar and Tamworths), mouflon sheep, Exmoor ponies and even water buffalo to replicate the ecosystem roles of Britain’s lost megafauna. These helped shape not only the species composition and trophic structure of the ecosystem, but also the physical structure of the habitats, conserving and promoting biodiversity. Gow describes how the cattle gouged banks and dug pits in pastures, how pigs created wallows that supported tadpoles and dragonfly larvae, and how the presence of grazing ponies has resulted in an irregular, wilder edge where pastures and woods meet.

Mouflon by leopoldo de castro via Flickr

Throughout the later chapters, Gow shares the conservation history and reintroduction attempts of two ailing UK species, the water vole (Arvicola amphibius) and the pool frog (Pelophylax lessonae). Water vole populations have significantly declined in recent decades due to predation by the invasive American mink (Neovison vision), habitat degradation, historical persecution and pollution. The reduction in waterways and habitat corridors, the removal of bankside vegetation and the urbanisation of floodplains are among the many ways water vole habitats are being destroyed. Gow recounts the process of creating a successful captive breeding program for water voles, sharing the many mistakes that were made before they found the right cage design. Thousands of water voles have been bred for release projects, helping to boost declining populations.

Human encroachment into watercourses is also thought to have been one of the causes of the extinction of pool frogs in the UK. Reintroductions from populations in Sweden have been underway since 2005. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gow links both the reintroduction of this species and the efforts for water voles to the reintroduction of beavers. As anyone who has read Bringing Back the Beaver will know, beavers are ecosystem engineers and shape the habitats they live in. Their actions provide a far more sustainable and natural practice for creating more suitable habitats to facilitate rewilding and the reintroduction of other species.

Beaver pond in Yellowstone National Park. Image by NPS / Neal Herbert via Flickr

Birds, Beasts and Bedlum is a fun, engaging memoir, filled with excentric tales and artful insights into the world of farming, conservation and rewilding. Ending on a lament at the often slow, overcomplicated process of reintroductions and rewilding, this book highlights the need for a better-developed system and large-scale reshaping of the landscape, with a final call for the return of the wolf.

Birds, Beasts and Bedlam: Turning My Farm into an Ark for Lost Species
By: Derek Gow
Hardback | June 2022

Robert Gillmor Obituary

Robert Gillmor 1936–2022

We have recently received the sad news of the passing of Robert Gillmor, a leading ornithologist and author, and one of Britain’s most popular and loved wildlife artists.

Born in 1936, Gillmor’s illustrations were first published in the monthly magazine British Birds when he was just 16. Since then, he illustrated more than 100 books, as well as producing several of his own collections, including Cutting Away in 2006, Birds, Blocks And Stamps in 2011, and Pressing On: A Decade of New Linocuts in 2018. Notably, he was the artist behind the original Avocet drawings used for the RSPB logo and the Sacred Ibis in the British Ornithologists Union (BOU) logo. His artwork has also appeared in journals, calendars, greetings cards and posters. In 2015, Gillmor received an MBE for his services to wildlife art.

Gillmor also designed over seventy of the covers for the New Naturalist series, bringing to life a variety of titles including Farming and Birds; Beetles; Garden Birds; British Warblers, his first cover; and his 72nd, Ecology and Natural History. In 2011, Royal Mail commissioned Gillmor to illustrate a set of Post & Go Birds of Britain stamps. He created 46 designs over three years and the profits from the sale of the original linocuts were donated to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust.

Robert Gillmor was one of the founding members of the Society of Wildlife Artists, an organisation founded in 1964 seeking to encourage appreciation of the natural world through fine art inspired by wildlife. SWLA strives to promote awareness of the importance of conservation through exhibitions and publications, while also supporting young artists that are eager to develop their knowledge and skills in wildlife art.

Gillmor was a keen ornithologist, serving on the council of three national organisations: RSPB, BOU and the British Trust for Ornithology. Due to his contributions to ornithology and bird conservation, he received the highest awards from all three societies. He also had a leading role in the promotion of the British Birdwatching Fair (Birdfair), an annual event whose organisers donated all of their profits to Birdlife International, and designed many of the event’s iconic posters.

Robert Gillmor: 6th July 1936–8th May 2022

Author Interview with David Shiffman: Why Sharks Matter

Sharks are some of the most fascinating, most ecologically important, most threatened, and most misunderstood animals on Earth. In Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive with the World’s Most Misunderstood Predator, marine conservation biologist Dr David Shiffman explains why it’s crucial that we overcome our misconceptions and rise above cinematic jump scares to embrace sharks as the critically important species that they are.

Exploring the core tenets of shark conservation science and policy, Shiffman synthesises decades of scientific research and policymaking, weaving it into a narrative full of humour and adventure. Approachable and informative, Why Sharks Matter is perfect for shark enthusiasts, explaining why sharks are in trouble, why we should care and how we can save them.

Dr David Shiffman recently discussed his new book with us, explaining how he became fascinated with sharks, what is being done to change public opinion and why social science research is so important to shark conservation.

Courtesy of Dr. David Shiffman

Firstly, could you tell us how you became fascinated with sharks and the inspiration behind this book?

I’ve loved sharks for as long as my family can remember, there are pictures of me when I was barely old enough to walk with shark t-shirts and shark toys. I think most kids go through a shark thing or a dinosaur thing, and I never grew out of mine. When I give public talks, inevitably someone will come up to me afterwards and say “I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid”- and I always reply “Me too!”.

In my experience speaking to the public, I’ve realized that lots of people want to help sharks, but don’t necessarily know the most effective ways to do that. And while there are lots of shark books out there, there was nothing that comprehensively lays out the case for having healthy shark populations off our coasts, systematically reviews the different threats to shark species, and thoroughly reviews the different ways that scientists, environmentalists, and the public can help sharks. In short, I wrote the book that I always wished existed, because I know there’s a need for it.

The book does an impressive job of debunking the public image of sharks as dangerous and violent predators. Outside of your own work, what is, if anything, being done to change public opinion about sharks?

As a marine conservation biologist who studies sharks and how to protect them, I know that we need the public to not only no longer fear sharks, but to value the role they play in the ecosystem and to want them around. And I also know that it matters what people do to help, and that there are lots of things that people do while trying to help that are not really helping. I use this book as a chance to bust some myths not only about sharks as mindless killing machines, but also myths about threats to sharks and solutions to these conservation challenges. The subtitle doesn’t call them “the world’s most misunderstood predator” for nothing! In the book, I introduce readers to some of my favourite environmental non-profits who are working to educate the public and persuade policymakers that we need new and stronger laws. If you’re looking for good groups to support, I am happy to recommend them to you.

What do you think is the biggest threat to sharks and what can the average person do to help?

The science is clear on this point: the biggest threat to sharks is unsustainable overfishing, including but not limited to the shark fin trade (which many well-intentioned shark-o-philes wrongly believe is that only threat to sharks). The single most effective thing that an individual consumer can do to help not only sharks but the whole ocean is to not eat unsustainable seafood. Notice that I did not say “give up all seafood and become vegan,” because while that’s a perfectly valid personal choice, the people claiming that we all need to do this or the oceans are doomed are not telling the truth. If you, like me, love seafood, just choose to buy sustainable seafood.

A steady supply of seawater is pumped through the shark’s mouth to help sustain it while measurements and samples are taken before it is released. Courtesy of Dr. David Shiffman

You share a range of scientific tools used to monitor sharks, from eDNA to telemetry tracking, but you also highlight the importance of social science research. Why do you think this approach is important to shark conservation?

A major goal of the conservation movement is passing new laws or regulations to protect endangered species, but notably these laws do not limit what the animals can do, they only control humans. Therefore, we need to understand what humans want, what humans do, and what humans know–and these are questions that the social sciences are designed to answer.

What is your vision for the future of shark conservation? Are you hopeful or pessimistic?

I am cautiously optimistic about the future of the ocean. More people care and want to help than ever before, and if we can channel that energy into something productive, we can move mountains!

And lastly, do you have any current projects or plans for the future that you would like to tell us about?

I’m always on the move, always up to some new project. If anyone would like to follow my adventures, or to ask me anything you want to know about sharks, I invite you to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @WhySharksMatter.

Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive with the World’s Most Misunderstood Predator
By: Dr David Shiffman
Hardback | May 2022 | £18.50

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Author Interview with Mark Carwardine: Field Guide to Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises

Practical and portable, this is the ultimate field guide to the world’s cetaceans. This is the most comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date guide to whales, dolphins and porpoises. Containing more than 500 accurate illustrations – complete with detailed annotations pointing out the most significant field marks – this new field guide covers all 93 species and every subspecies in the world.

The informative text, produced in collaboration with many of the world’s most respected whale biologists, is accompanied by distribution maps, size demonstrations, dive sequences and additional information such as comparisons of silhouettes and illustrations of barnacles, lice and callosities.

Cetacean expert Mark Carwardine kindly took the time to discuss this new field guide with us, discussing how the outlook for cetaceans has changed since he first began to study them, why he chose to use illustrations over photographs and what he is working on now.

What inspired you to write this new field guide and how does it differ from your previous handbook?

The Handbook of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises was the culmination of a life’s work, really, and took six years to research and write. It was designed as a comprehensive reference book to be used at home or in the office – and, consequently, weighs almost as much as a small porpoise. The pocket-sized Field Guide to Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises is an abbreviated (and fully updated) version, focusing more on identification, and it has been designed specifically to take into the field. Since our knowledge of cetaceans has improved so much, with new behaviour and many new species described in recent years, previous field guides (my own included) are drastically out of date. I think a new guide was desperately needed.

Dusky dolphin by wanderstruck via Flickr

Your book includes a number of threatened species, including the functionally extinct Yangtze river dolphin and the vaquita, many of which we may lose entirely over the next decade. How has the outlook for whales, dolphins and porpoises changed since you first started to study cetaceans?

There’s no doubt that for many cetacean species, if not most, the outlook is worse than it was when I started working in this field. Some – the humpback whale is a good example – are doing surprisingly well, against all odds. But many others are not. The vaquita, we believe, is down to the last 10 individuals and is almost certainly the next (after the Yangtze river dolphin) doomed to extinction. Sadly, though, it’s not alone. The North Atlantic right whale comes to mind – there are fewer than 350 survivors and, with numbers continuing to decline, we fear for its future. Countless others are on the verge of extinction or have all but disappeared from many of their former haunts. Sometimes, I am surprised that any survive at all, given the shocking number of threats they face, such as commercial whaling and other forms of hunting, myriad conflicts with fisheries, pollution, habitat degradation and disturbance, underwater noise, entanglement in or ingestion of marine debris, ship strikes and climate change.

This field guide is full of beautiful and detailed illustrations. Why did you choose to include these rather than photographs?

I prefer the use of illustrations in field guides, because I think they demonstrate the key identification features more effectively. Also, there is a huge amount of variation within each species of cetacean – geographical variations, races and sub-species etc – and good photographs do not exist of many of the most critical ones!

Relatively little is known about the population estimates or trends of many of the species listed in this book. Why do you think this is the case, and is there ongoing research taking place to fill these knowledge gaps?

It’s true to say that our knowledge of cetaceans has grown from virtually nothing to just a little bit – despite decades of wild whale research. They are incredibly difficult animals to study, because they spend most of their lives underwater, often live far out to sea and regularly travel vast distances. They are even more difficult to count. I take people to see the friendly grey whales in San Ignacio Lagoon, Mexico, every year and we have fun trying to estimate the number of whales within the relatively small lagoon. Everyone comes up with wildly different numbers. Just imagine trying to estimate the number of minke whales, for example, in the North Atlantic. In some cases, a species is so rare that we know every individual and have an accurate population size. But in many cases it’s an informed guesstimate. The key thing is to be able to compare these guesstimates from time to time and place to place to get relative population trends. And, with some exceptions, I do think we have a pretty good idea about which species are declining and which are doing relatively well.

Minke whale with a satellite tag, image by Oregon State University via Flickr

Is there anything that you are currently working on or do you have any plans for future projects that you would like to tell us about?

Well, I’ll never stop spending as much time with whales, dolphins and porpoises as possible! And I’ll be keeping the field guide up-to-date, of course, for future editions. But I’ve also been working on a book closer to home, called RSPB How to Photograph Garden Birds, which will be out early next year (to tie in with the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch). It started as an excuse during lockdown to photograph my own garden birds but, as I developed and discovered more tricks and techniques, it gradually turned into a book. One thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to travel to far-flung corners of the world to take great pictures of wildlife. Indeed, some of the most memorable and eye-catching images I’ve ever seen – especially while judging umpteen wildlife photography competitions over the years – have been of common and familiar species taken close to home. Yet these more ‘ordinary’ subjects tend to be ignored by many photographers. They are considered too obvious or insufficiently compelling (although I’ve never understood why because, by any standard, many of our garden birds are strikingly beautiful). While there are countless awe-inspiring images of polar bears and humpback whales, when was the last time you saw a truly inspirational image of a house sparrow or a robin, for example? Exactly. Hopefully, that’s where this book will help and inspire.

Field Guide to Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises
By: Mark Carwardine
Paperback | May 2022 | £12.99 ~~£16.99~~

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.