The latest volume in the New Naturalist series, Stoats, Weasels, Martens & Polecats focuses on the four species of ‘small mustelids’ – highly specialised predators and ubiquitous assassins, some of which were once hunted to near-extinction. This delightfully rich text details their physiology, distribution, daily lives, significance in UK history and folklore, while also intertwining the authors own experiences working at the forefront of mustelid conservation across England and Wales.
Jenny MacPherson managed the Pine Marten Reintroduction Project for many years before taking over as the Principle Scientist at The Vincent Wildlife Trust. She has a longstanding background in zoology and research, holds an MSc in Conservation at the University College London and a PhD from Royal Holloway.
Jenny recently took the time out of her busy schedule to talk to us about the book, including how she first became interested in mustelids, how she thinks these animals will fare in relation to the current climate and environmental challenges and more.
Can you tell us a little about your background and what first interested you in mustelids?
I studied zoology at university as a mature student, having worked as a theatre costume assistant in London when I left school. Actually, my first experience of mustelids was the rather unflattering portrayal of the Stoats and Weasels in the National Theatre production of The Wind in the Willows that I worked on, back in 1990! – I was responsible for getting Otter into his costume, a 1920s style knitted bathing suit. Then, as an undergraduate at Royal Holloway University, I planned my dissertation project on Pine Martens, having been captivated by them on holidays in Scotland, where it was such a rare treat to see them. Since then, mustelids, and especially Pine Martens, have been a major interest of mine.
It is very difficult to study elusive, nocturnal animals that live at low density and are patchily distributed. It certainly tests our ingenuity. Thankfully some of the rapid advances in technology are helping, as I describe in the book.
How do you think small mustelids in the UK will fare in the face of climate and environmental change?
It is difficult to predict and it will likely vary between species. Pine Martens might ultimately benefit from increases in afforestation for carbon storage, but in the meantime existing forests are coming under multiple pressures from recreation, timber harvesting and emerging plant diseases. The impacts of environmental change on prey populations shouldn’t be underestimated either. Some long-term studies have already shown declines in the abundance and diversity of small mammal communities linked to climate change, which is of concern for all of our native carnivores.
Historical opinions held by some across the UK favour culling of mustelids. For instance, Pine Martens in Scotland are at risk of predator-control trapping due to a perceived risk to livestock and game birds. What can we do to challenge these long-held, traditional ways of thinking in relation to UK predators?
We need to raise greater awareness of natural processes, including predation. Predators have a number of important functions and play a key role in supporting our ecosystems. In Britain, these have been out of balance for centuries as a result of human intervention and we have become used to ‘controlling’ any animals that cause us an inconvenience, rather than working together to find practicable ways of living alongside predators.
Citizen science projects are a great way for people outside of the field to get involved with conservation research. Are there any resources where the public can submit sightings? And how can citizen science benefit the conservation of this group?
Citizen scientists and volunteers are crucial to conservation research and we have a long history of their involvement in Britain. Vincent Wildlife Trust collect sightings and other records of Pine Martens and are currently also carrying out a two-year national survey of Polecats. More information can be found on the website at www.vwt.org.uk. The collective effort of citizen scientists makes it possible to gather huge amounts of information over large areas and time frames, which helps to focus conservation efforts where they are most needed for these species.
Are you working on any other projects you would like to share with us? Can we expect more books from you in the future?
I am currently working on a number of projects in my role at Vincent Wildlife Trust, including a feasibility study for reintroducing European Mink to the southern Carpathians in Romania, and I have just started writing another book.
Stoats, Weasels, Martens & Polecats is available to pre-order from our online bookstore.
This is the first comprehensive guide to bird pellets showcasing a wide range of pellets produced by different species, including owls, hawks, waders and various garden birds. Author Ed Drewitt offers a methodical introduction to pellets, outlining what they are, how they’re formed, dissection methods, analysis and common findings, accompanied by an array of detailed illustrations and photographs. Bird Pellets provides a closer look at those produced by each species in turn and outlines how to identify the remains of small mammals, which can be an important tool for discovering what a bird feeds on, understanding dietary change over time and other aspects, making this an invaluable resource in ecology.
Ed Drewitt is a professional naturalist, wildlife detective and broadcaster for the BBC who specialises in the study of birds and marine mammals. He studied Zoology at the University of Bristol, before working at Bristol’s Museums, Galleries and Archives for numerous years. He is now a freelance learning consultant who runs bird identification courses, provides wildlife commentaries on excursions, writes for wildlife magazines and is involved in bird ringing studies. Ed is also the lead researcher in a study focusing on the diet of urban-dwelling peregrines in the UK and author of Urban Peregrines.
Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to write a book about bird pellets?
I have been interested in wildlife, particularly birds, since I was six or seven. Back then I would love collecting feathers and skulls, and bird pellets. I remember being excited at finding a Sparrowhawk plucking–perch in the woods where I lived in Surrey and finding small pellets – packed full of small feathers – from the hawk. Much of my career has involved developing and delivering learning workshops and resources for school-aged students and my public engagement work involves communicating science in plain English. Therefore, I am well versed in writing a book that appeals to families, schools and researchers alike. For several years I worked part-time in the teaching laboratory for the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. Each spring I would help oversee students dissecting several hundred Barn Owl pellets; I also arranged for a live owl and Kestrel to come in, to bring the practical ‘alive’. I have also been studying what urban-dwelling Peregrines eat (and am author of Urban Peregrines and Raptor Prey Remains) over the past 26 years. Therefore, I was in a brilliant and timely position to tap into my own pellet and bone collection, and source more material from others across the country and beyond, to write the ultimate bird pellet book!
Most people are aware that owls and raptors produce pellets, but are there any pellet-producing species that we’d be more surprised to hear about?
Absolutely – any bird that eats something that is indigestible and unable to pass through the intestines and out the other end, will produce a pellet. People are always surprised when I explain that even Robins and Blackbirds produce pellets, often made up of bits of woodlice and beetles. Interestingly though, two raptors, that you might expect to produce pellets do not: the Osprey and the Honey Buzzard. Both eat foods that either are digested or picked at, meaning harder parts, such as bones, are not swallowed.
I was interested to read in your introduction to the book that pellets can be used to study what birds were eating thousands or even millions of years ago. Are bird pellets generally well represented in the fossil record?
The brilliant thing about pellets is that, while their general structure may break down, their contents, for example, mammal and bird skulls, may accumulate in one area, even if they get buried over time. While some bits will slowly decay or move over time, others may remain in situ and intact. Palaeontologists and archaeologists often study how animals decay; it is known as taphonomy. It can also be applied to pellets. While complex, researchers can work out which species has produced a pellet and what happens to its contents with time. In turn, researchers can determine previous assemblages of prey species, such as small mammals, and how these have changed over time depending on environmental and ecological conditions. This type of study can also work out which species are more (or less) likely to be found in such accumulations and therefore how the fossil record may be biased towards particular prey species.
Many of us will be familiar with the technique of using the visual observation of bones and other remains in pellets to study what was in a bird’s diet. But are there more advanced laboratory methods that are now being used to study them in more detail?
Yes, although I don’t think they are quite as fun or smelly! In essence, taking swabs from pellets can reveal the DNA of what has been eaten, including things that may not otherwise be detectable, although some of these items may have been eaten by the prey itself, if the DNA is intact enough. It can work the other way though; well digested food remains may mean the DNA of prey is undetectable or so degraded it cannot be assigned to a species or taxa, while traditional visual techniques may be able to confirm its identity.
Can pellets be useful for studying the presence of pollutants in the environment, such as plastics and microplastics?
Absolutely, and this is not a new thing, although it is now more topical in the media. Some seabirds, such as terns and gulls, have been producing pellets with polystyrene particles going back to the 1970s. However, now we have a better idea of just how much plastic is in our environment, we are now looking for it more in the stomachs and pellets of birds. Dippers are a very good example. Small invertebrates, such as stonefly larvae, ingest microplastics. They are then eaten by Dippers and the plastics accumulate in the pellets they regurgitate. Of course, the cumulative health effects that ingesting plastic has on birds such as Dippers is difficult to ascertain. Even Barn Owl pellets may contain microplastics, ingested from the stomachs of small mammals they are eating.
What is the most surprising or unusual thing you have found in a bird pellet to date?
Gull pellets are often the most interesting, mostly because of the litter they contain, from plastic particles and bags to condoms! On a more natural note, the most spectacular pellet I have found was on the Flannan Isles, a remote island west of the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. The pellet was from a Great Skua, and it contained a whole Leach’s Petrel, which also live on the island. The petrel had gone down into the stomach where it had been digested. It was then regurgitated as a pellet, pretty much as a whole bird including intact wings, just minus any flesh! Skuas and Great Black-backed Gulls will also do the same thing with young rabbits and Puffins. Pellets can also be useful for finding the rings of wild birds and discovering that a bird has eaten another bird with an interesting origin of ringing, such as Norway or Russia!
Finally, what’s keeping you occupied this summer, and do you have further books in the pipeline that we can look forward to?
During the summer I am busy taking people out to see wildlife, especially in the Forest of Dean, where I live. I especially love birdsong and helping others to hear it. I am also working with the RSPB on the Gwent Levels, doing some training courses on identifying saltmarsh plants and wildlife. My wife, Liz, and I have two children, aged four and seven, so we will also be busy keeping them occupied! They love the outdoors and enjoy seeing wildlife just like we do. I have some papers in the pipeline as I am halfway through a part-time PhD at the University of Bristol. My 26-year study of the diet of urban-dwelling peregrines has given me plenty of data to analyse and write into chapters for my PhD.
Bird Pellets will be published by Pelagic Publishing and is available to pre-order from our online bookstore.
In this bracing yet hopeful exploration of the future of the ocean, Helen scales relays the fascinating, deep history of our seas and reveals how prehistoric ecology holds lessons for the oceans of today. In light of the current challenging climate conditions, she offers innovative ideas to protect our coastlines and the species who live there, highlighting the importance of ethical and sustainable fisheries, the threat posed by deep-sea mining and more. This inspiring tale urges us to fight for a better future for the ocean before it’s too late.
Helen Scales is a marine biologist, author and broadcaster who teaches Marine Biology and Science Writing at the University of Cambridge. She regularly writes on ocean discoveries for National Geographic Magazine and The Guardian, is an avid scuba diver, cold-water surfer and trained free diver who has lived and worked around the world, and is currently spending her time between Cambridge and the wild Atlantic coast of France.
We recently had the opportunity to talk to Helen about her most recent book What The Wild Sea Can Be, including how she first became a marine biologist, how we can secure a better future for our oceans, her current projects and more.
Firstly, can you tell us a little about yourself, your career, and how you came to be a marine biologist?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved nature and being outdoors. My family spent a lot of holidays in Cornwall, so my training grounds as a marine biologist were windswept Atlantic beaches. This is when I began my lifelong love of rock pooling, shell collecting and rummaging around in seaweed to see what I can find.
As a teen, I became a committed environmentalist. I was outraged by the issues of the day, including deforestation in the Amazon, and became vegetarian. Around the time I was beginning to contemplate a career as an environmental scientist, a school friend and I decided to take up scuba diving. We lived in land-locked, suburban Surrey – not an obvious place to learn to dive – but there was a friendly dive club that met each week and trained at the local swimming pool in an enclosed sea of eye-stinging chlorination. Our open water training dives were mostly back down in Cornwall, and that’s where I truly fell in love with the ocean and knew that I wanted to become a marine biologist. Instead of running off to save the rainforests, I wanted to save the ocean. I often say that was when my vision for my future turned from green to blue.
So I left school, diving licence in hand, and immediately headed off on adventures to explore more of the seas. I’ve been incredibly lucky to travel to many corners of the ocean, studying and researching, and taking every opportunity I could to get myself underwater. For my PhD, I went to Borneo and studied the lives and loves of one of the biggest and I think most beautiful fish on coral reefs, the Humphead Wrasse.
Over the years, I’ve worked for various conservation organisations, including WWF in Malaysia where I mapped marine life around an archipelago of coral islands. Later, I worked on efforts to control the global trade in endangered marine species. Then, quite out of the blue, I discovered a previously unknown passion for writing and presenting, and decided to focus on sharing stories with people about the wonders and troubles of the living ocean.
This book is cautiously optimistic about marine conservation. What have been the most impactful positive actions that have helped the recovery and management of our oceans?
A big part of my optimism for the future is the fact that ocean life has an incredible capacity to recover and heal, given a chance. Often all it takes is for people to stop hunting and killing so many animals.
For instance in the 1980s, commercial whaling was banned following the successful Save the Whales campaign, and now we’re seeing many whale populations doing a lot better. Back in the mid 20th century, whalers had killed around 99% of the Blue Whale subspecies from Antarctica, the biggest animals ever known to exist. Just recently, hydrophones stationed in the Southern Ocean have been detecting the songs of Blue Whales, a good sign that their numbers are on the rise.
Recoveries are happening in many other ocean species. After being gone for decades, Bluefin Tuna are showing up again around Britain, in part because catches have been better controlled in the Atlantic. Populations of oceanic sharks, like Great Hammerheads and Great White Sharks, are gradually increasing in the western Atlantic following years of overfishing. Up until the 1990s, the United States had a policy that actively encouraged shark exploitation. These wild animals were classified as an underutilised resource. That didn’t go well for sharks and their populations crashed. Finally, attitudes shifted, and the government rolled back the shark killing incentives and introduced measures to protect them in commercial and recreational fisheries.
Another proven way to let the ocean recover is to leave parts completely alone. That means no fishing or exploitation of any kind. People have been trying out these kinds of highly protected marine reserves for decades and showing that this is a powerful way to let nature in the ocean heal, grow and proliferate – not just inside the watery reserve boundaries but outside too.
Some of these reserves are quite tiny, and some are enormous. At both big and small scales there can be tremendous benefits for wildlife and for people when these kinds of reserves are well designed and well enforced. In Scotland, a tiny reserve off the island of Arran has helped seabed ecosystems recover and flourish from years of trawling; Lamlash Bay is now home to lots more big lobsters and scallops, and the fragile habitat-forming seaweed called maerl. And in the middle of the Pacific, the vast Papah?naumoku?kea Marine National Monument covers more than 1.5 million square miles of sea, including the spawning grounds of migratory Yellowfin and Bigeye Tuna whose numbers are increasing.
The entire ocean will never be strictly protected. What’s needed are more of these kinds of carefully located and well–enforced reserves – to protect important places like the spawning grounds of rare and endangered species, and safeguard deep sea mounts covered in rich coral and sponge gardens – combined with wider measures to sustainably manage the rest of the ocean.
What the Wild Sea Can Be discusses possible solutions to the big problems that humanity will face in terms of future oceans. Are you aware of any lesser-known or less popular solutions that could be beneficial in securing a sustainable ocean?
Certain solutions for a sustainable ocean tend to be unpopular among powerful people who are creaming off profits from the seas, often at huge industrial scales. Take the factory ships that head to Antarctica to extract krill. These finger-sized crustaceans are hunted by truly massive ships. One recently built in China is 140m(460ft) long– longer than a football field. The technique for catching krill involves lowering down giant nets and pumping up hundreds of tonnesof krill every day, working nonstop for weeks at a time. The krill is processed on board, mashed and ground to make fishmeal and oils, and most of it is destined for fish farms to be fed to livestock like salmon.
Krill are fantastically abundant in the Southern Ocean. The snag is that the places where fisheries target krill in their densest, largest shoals are the very same places where Antarctic wildlife flocks to feed on them. Whales, seals, penguins and seabirds depend on krill. Studies suggest that fisheries depleting local krill populations can make it tough for other animals to find enough food, especially penguins during their nesting season.
To make matters worse, krill and their predators are also in the firing line of the climate crisis. The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest heating places on the planet. Sea ice is retreating, upsetting the life cycle of krill that depend on the ice.
Proposals to protect more of the seas around the West Antarctic Peninsula and restrict where fishing can happen are being met with strong opposition from nations with major krill fishing interests. There are many other examples where vested interests and powerful lobbies are blocking progressive changes to the way people use the ocean.
In chapter ten you discuss the idea of futuristic, ocean floating cities in the Maldives. Do you think highly engineered solutions such as these have a place in a sustainable future? And how realistic do you think these innovative adaptations are as a long-term solution?
It’s only going to be rich nations that can afford expensive, engineered solutions at a large enough scale to be significant. Perhaps there are people in the Maldives who will be able to afford this, but I’m guessing not an average fishing family whose island homes are disappearing beneath the waves. The situation in the Maldives is grim and it’s hard to know what to do in low-lying, island nations that have so little time, so I understand why people are exploring ideas of floating cities and other extreme measures.
Elsewhere, more realistic and frankly exciting solutions involve working with nature, not against it. Wetland habitats, like salt marshes and mangrove forests, are excellent at protecting against flooding and storms, and they bring heaps of other benefits too, from carbon sequestration to supporting local fisheries.
A priority for living with the future ocean is to protect and nurture existing wetlands, especially those near big cities, and to find smart ways of weaving those green solutions into more conventional approaches to protecting coastlines.
This book is a realistic, yet hopeful exploration of the future of our marine environment. Where do you think we should focus our attention over the next ten years to secure a better future for our oceans?
There are a few key things that I think need attention in the ocean in the years ahead. It will be critical to turn off the tap of plastics entering the ocean. To do that, plastic production needs to be limited globally. Currently, the amount being made annually is skyrocketing, and recycling rates have stagnated at around 10%. A global treaty on plastics is being negotiated at the United Nations which could pave the way to turning around the plastics juggernaut.
There needs to be a cultural shift away from treating the ocean as a resource to exploit and squeeze profit from. A new mindset is beginning to take hold embracing an alternative view, one of cultivation and investment. People are producing low-impact, ethical seafood, for instance growing shellfish and seaweed. Governments need to support initiatives like these, instead of propping up damaging industrial fisheries. The ocean has the capacity to provide sustainable food for millions of people, especially in food-insecure nations who have no alternatives and depend most on the seas, but not if damaging industrial fishing continues to dominate.
New ways to recklessly exploit the ocean need to be stopped before they start, in particular deep-sea mining. Mining corporations want to extract metal-rich rocks from the seabed many miles beneath the waves, in the process destroying vital deep-sea habitats and species, potentially causing widespread pollution and disrupting the health of the ocean.
The argument for deep-sea mining is that this would be a better way to provide materials for a green economy, in particular to build electric car batteries. For many reasons, this logic is deeply flawed. For one thing, the EV market is fast moving, and companies are constantly inventing new technologies in the race to build lighter, faster-charging batteries. Increasingly, the types of metals that could come from the deep, such as cobalt and lithium, are likely to be replaced by more readily available and less problematic materials.
There’s growing pushback from civil society, governments, indigenous groups, scientists and industry leaders who agree that deep-sea mining is not vital for green economies and would permanently harm the ocean.
What’s next for you? Do you have any current projects that you would like to share with us?
A few years ago I began writing books for younger readers and it’s become a part of my work that I treasure. I have a lot of fun telling stories about the seas and sea life to younger audiences, and I love collaborating with super talented artists who make such incredibly beautiful books. So, I have several more books for little ones in the pipeline.
There are also some spin offs from the books I’ve already written. When I set out on my career as a marine biologist, I never imagined one day I would have my own jigsaws!
What the Wild Sea Can Be is available to order from our online bookstore.
***** An eye-opening and thought-provoking reportage
The road to hell might be paved with good intentions, but the roads to pretty much everywhere else are paved with the corpses of animals. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb explores the outsized yet underappreciated impacts of the ~65 million kilometres of roads that hold the planet in a paved stranglehold. These extend beyond roadkill to numerous other insidious biological effects. The relatively young discipline of road ecology tries to gauge and mitigate them and sees biologists join forces with engineers and roadbuilders. This is a wide-ranging and eye-opening survey of the situation in the USA and various other countries.
As Goldfarb points out, roadkill is as old as the road but the phenomenon went into overdrive with the invention of the combustion engine and a new-found need for speed that menaced humans and animals alike. With the morbid curiosity typical of biologists, Dayton and Lilian Stoner published the first tally of motorcar casualties in 1925, in the process diagnosing “a malady with no name” (p. 16), as the word roadkill would not be coined for another two decades. The word road ecology was only coined in 1993 by Richard Forman, though it was translated from the German Straßenökologie that was coined in 1981 by Heinz Ellenberg.
As a discipline, road ecology both studies the impact of roads and formulates solutions. Particularly common, and featured extensively in this book, are wildlife crossings. Underpasses serve many animals but others have different needs such as overpasses or canopy rope bridges. Amphibians and reptiles are given a helping hand with toad tunnels and bucket brigades. Fish migration is being restored by retrofitting culverts that are better navigable.
The long and winding road by Mussi Katz, via flickr.
To us, roads are the unnoticed connective tissue that links places of extraction with industry and commerce, and shuttles commuters between home and work. For other animals, they are barriers: despite the good intentions, wildlife crossings cannot serve all animals equally and cannot be constructed everywhere. Millions of animals still die in collisions every day. Goldfarb addresses the very real concerns of extirpation, habitat fragmentation, interrupted migrations, and noise pollution. With roads come humans who bring deforestation, hunting, real estate development, urban sprawl, tourism, etc.
Amidst this litany of harms, Goldfarb features several topics that will be eye-opening even to ecologists. There is the little-known history of how the US Forest Service constructed one of the world’s largest road networks of now mostly abandoned forest tracks. Roads also feed a diverse community of scavengers that includes humans; a necrobiome that “airbrushes our roadsides, camouflaging a crisis by devouring it” (p. 181). In Syracuse, Goldfarb faces the racist legacy of interstate highways that were bulldozed straight through Black and Latino neighbourhoods. Plans are now afoot to reverse this wrong, move the highway, and create a community where people can again walk to their destinations. In a brilliant flourish, Goldfarb connects this back to the book’s main topic: “Road ecologists and urban advocates are engaged in the same epic project: creating a world that’s amenable to feet” (p. 287).
Badbury Rings Avenue – No HDR by JackPeasePhotography, via flickr.
So far, so good. Goldfarb’s writing shines and certain turns of phrase are memorable. I was initially concerned how US-centric this book would be. Though weighted towards US examples, Goldfarb also visits Wales, Costa Rica, Tasmania, and Brazil, and discusses several European initiatives.
Despite the gloomy picture, there are some encouraging signs. The US Forest Service has started decommissioning parts of its road network. Brazil, meanwhile, shows what government regulation can achieve. Here, highway operators are held legally responsible for dealing with the harm and costs resulting from collisions. Contrast this with the USA, Goldfarb observes sharply, where individual drivers are blamed for collisions. This “deflects culpability from the car companies building ever more massive SUVs and the engineers designing unsafe streets” (p. 295). As with addressing climate change, individual action only gets us so far; making roads safer demands systemic change, “a public works project, one of history’s most colossal” (p. 296).
And yet, something nagged at me. The focus on mitigation smacks of a palliative solution and Goldfarb concedes the limitations of road ecology. Crossings and fences will not stop the many other impacts of roads and risk becoming “a form of greenwashing […] a fig leaf that conceals and rationalizes destruction” (p. 265). As with other environmental problems, should we not first focus on abandoning or reducing certain behaviours, instead of turning to techno-fixes? Can we imagine something more radical? Can Goldfarb?
Country road and yellow field by Susanne Nilsson, via flickr.
To his credit, he admits wrestling with this problem. “The most straightforward solution to the road’s ills would be a collective rejection of automobility […] In the course of writing this book, I’ve felt, at times, like a defeatist—as though, by extolling wildlife passages, I foreclose the possibility of a more radical, carless future” (p. 295). I would have loved to see him explore this further in a dedicated chapter. Instead, Goldfarb comes down on the side of pragmatism. Bicycles and public transport are great for making urban areas more liveable, but most roadkill happens elsewhere. Furthermore, personal mobility is only part of the story, with logistics making up a huge chunk of traffic. The eye-opening chapter on Brazil, and the outsized influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative that sees it invest in infrastructure globally, is a forceful reminder that the developmental juggernaut is nigh impossible to slow down. One road ecologist points out that you cannot seriously enter the discussion around roads if you oppose social and economic development, while another chimes in that, whether we like it or not, more roads will be built. Although I do not think resistance is futile, Goldfarb leaves me sympathetic to the road ecologists who are desperately trying to nudge construction projects in directions “that, if not quite “right,” are at least less wrong” (p. 270).
Goldfarb acknowledges the input of some 250 people and even then stresses his book is far from the final word on the subject. He encourages readers to take it as a starting point and read deeper, providing 43 pages of notes to the many sources of information he has used. I would additionally recommend A Clouded Leopard in the Middle of the Road by Australian road ecologist Darryl Jones which was published last year but seems to have flown under the radar compared to Goldfarb’s book. Overall, Crossings is a wide-ranging, eye-opening, and thought-provoking reportage that deserves top marks.
Norway is home to some of the most sought-after bird species in Europe, including the King Eider, Gyrfalcon, Capercaillie and Jack Snipe. A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Norway is the first guide to the birds of Norway and Svalbard, detailing over 350 of the best birdwatching sites in this country. The guide efficiently explains where and when to visit these sites, which species are present in each area, how to use tower hides and shelters, other animal species you may encounter and more. The upcoming second edition includes 265 photographs, 95 maps and comprehensive information about each site, this is an essential travel guide for anyone planning to birdwatch in mainland Norway or Svalbard.
Bjørn Olav Tveit lives in Oslo, Norway and has explored many of the country’s best birding sites throughout his life. He is a long-standing member of the Norwegian Rarity Committee for Birds and acts as the nature conservation contact for his local BirdLife Norway division. He runs bird-spotting guided tours for nature enthusiasts, composes music, authors books and works for the Norwegian Ministry of Culture.
We recently had the opportunity to talk to Bjørn about how he became interested in birdwatching, what can be expected from the second edition of his book and more.
Firstly, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into birdwatching?
I have been an avid, Oslo-based birder since childhood, which is more than 40 years ago. When travelling abroad with my parents as a kid, I would lose myself in the birdwatcher’s site guides for that country or region, although I was puzzled by the fact that no such book existed for Norway. Rumours were that some older and more experienced birdwatchers were in the process of writing such a book, but the years went by, and it never materialised. Not only would I need the guidebook myself, as my activity range gradually expanded beyond Oslo, but also I was embarrassed on behalf of my country by the lack of such a guide. In my eyes, at least at the time, a birdwatching site guide defines a country’s identity and level of development. So, I decided to go forward and make the guidebook myself.
For anyone that enjoyed the first release of A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Norway, what can they expect to discover in this updated edition?
A lot has changed since the first edition came out 15 years ago. This change is most eye-catching in regard to Norway’s infrastructure: roads are improving and changing course; in some places, ferries have been replaced by bridges or tunnels; new tower hides have been built, and so, all maps and text have been updated accordingly. There have been quite a few changes in birdlife as well. For example, the Barred Warbler no longer breeds regularly along the Skagerrak coast, and the numbers of most cliff-breeding seabirds have greatly reduced to a point where e.g. Leach’s Storm Petrel is no longer expected on boat trips in Lofoten. On the positive side, the population of Rustic Bunting seems to be recovering, Red-flanked Bluetail is on the move into Norway, and Great Grey Owl now breeds regularly near Oslo. Furthermore, the book has expanded to a slightly larger format, allowing for more, easier-to-read maps and even more stunning images taken by some of the best photographers in the country.
This book details over 350 birdwatching sites in Norway and Svalbard – what was your process in deciding which sites to include?
Based on my experience with guiding birdwatchers from abroad all over Norway, I have prioritised the sites that can produce the target species that birders from abroad tend to aim for. I have also included many all-round good birding sites, especially those situated close to larger towns or popular tourist attractions.
Can you share any stand-out birdwatching experiences during your research for this edition?
Oddly enough, making a birdwatching site guide is not easily combined with birdwatching! In the process, I first spent a lot of time at home, taking notes while reading trip reports and local bird magazines. Then I corresponded with over 100 local birdwatchers, who all helped me in various ways on picking the sites and giving me their opinion on how to get the most out of a birding trip in their area. Then I fired up the car engine and drove across Norway, double-checking all the theoretical information, with a focus on ensuring that a lone birdwatcher would be able to find the way and make the most of his or her birdwatching trip, solely with the help of this book. In order to visit all the included sites (and a few that were subsequently dropped), I couldn’t afford to spend as much time at each site as I would have liked to. All in all, the remarkable experience of travelling across Norway, taking in the spectacular scenery and variation in habitats and birdlife, was perhaps the most outstanding part of it all for me personally. I did see a lot of good birds along the way, though.
Fifteen years have passed since the first edition was published, and during this time environmental pressures have continued to increase for wildlife. Have you noticed any changes over this time that may illustrate these impacts?
I have witnessed a lot of negative impacts at several sites and areas, but at the same time, the general public in Norway has become gradually more concerned with nature preservation. By watching the reactions from people visiting the country from abroad, the locals have understood that they live in a country that is unique in terms of nature and wildlife. And so they have become prouder and more prone to taking better care of the environment. During the process of making this book, the environmentalist in me has been awakened to an even greater extent than before. I was particularly shocked by the urbanisation of my childhood local patch, Fornebu near Oslo, when I visited it for the first time in a long time during the making of this book. In the aftermath, I have been strongly engaged in preserving and enhancing the bird habitats there.
You mentioned observing a greater accessibility to birdwatching sites since the first edition. Are you anticipating any changes in bird behaviour resulting from this? And how can birdwatchers minimise disturbance to bird species?
One of the negative effects that birdwatching tourism may have on birds and habitats is the heightened disturbance caused by the increase in foot traffic. However, if you lead people along paths to designated hides, you reduce this risk. And you get the added bonus of getting to see the birds close up, without disturbing them. By doing this right, I hope even more people become interested in watching birds. I believe that increased awareness and interest in birds among the public is a key element in preserving birds and their habitats.
What’s next for you? Are there new books on the horizon?
I plan to make a third edition of the Norwegian version soon, because the English second edition is much better than the Norwegian one that I put out four years ago. And I have contemplated writing a book presenting the birds and sites in my home municipality west of Oslo. Furthermore, I have been waiting in vain for four decades on a book presenting the rare and vagrant birds of Norway… as the case was with the site book, maybe I will have to write it myself!
A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Norway is published by Pelagic is available to pre-order from our online bookstore.
*****A unique on the story of dinosaur extinction and its aftermath
The day an asteroid slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula some 66 million years ago is a strong contender for “the worst day in history”. The K–Pg extinction ended the long evolutionary success story of the dinosaurs and a host of other creatures, and has lodged itself firmly in our collective imagination. But what happened next? The fact that a primate is tapping away at a keyboard writing this review gives you part of the answer. The rise of mammals was not a given, though, and the details have been hard to get by. Here, science writer Riley Black examines and imagines the aftermath of the extinction at various times post-impact. The Last Days of the Dinosaurs ends up being a fine piece of narrative non-fiction with thoughtful observations on the role of evolution in ecosystem recovery.
Before delving in, a brief word on what is not in the book. Black does not discuss the history of the research that discovered evidence of an asteroid impact, such as the iridium spike and the crater. Nor does she go into the ongoing debate on the relative contributions of the asteroid and Deccan Trap volcanism. Instead, Black’s approach is to imagine a day in the life of the survivors at various time points post-impact: after an hour, a day, a month, a year, a century, all the way up to one million years. She focuses on the Hell Creek formation in western North America as it offers one of the clearest windows into the mass extinction and its aftermath. Most chapters have a short coda that looks at how life was faring elsewhere on the planet. Black’s style of choice is narrative non-fiction: she is resurrecting individual animals and imagining their lives. As she explains in her preface, to allow full immersion, she is not interrupting the flow of her story with notes and references, which are found at the back of the book. An extensive, 58-page(!) chapter-by-chapter appendix reveals her process and discusses what we know, what is hypothetical, and where she has speculated to smooth over the gaps in our knowledge.
Now, when this book was announced, just the prospect of dipping into the story of the disaster and the ensuing recovery already had me excited. However, The Last Days of the Dinosaurs surpassed even these expectations for two main reasons.
First, there are plenty of exciting new ideas and scientific findings here. Black’s interpretation of the impact will no doubt ruffle some feathers as it is particularly catastrophic. Forget the often-depicted idea of an asteroid seen streaking across the sky, Black writes, this thing came in fast at some 45,000 miles per hour (~20 km/s). Forget, too, the often-depicted drawn-out hunger winter for the surviving dinosaurs. I had not come across this idea before, but Black writes how a global heat pulse that lasted several hours fried anyone that could not crawl underground or stay submerged underwater. This is based on estimates of the amount of material ejected by the impact that, upon re-entry, heated the atmosphere to several hundreds of degrees centigrade. It would have ignited global wildfires. Finally, the impact injected vast amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere as the impact site was rich in calcium sulfate. The ensuing acid rain “might have effectively erased some of the slowly forming fossil record” (p. 256), explaining why fossils are hard to find in the layers around the K–Pg boundary.
Fossil of dinosaur jaw full of sharp teeth by Ivan Radic, via flickr.
Regarding the survivors, Black has plenty of interesting ideas too. As seen at other times and other places, there was a fern spike. A rapid initial proliferation of ferns is frequently seen in devastated ecosystems where plants have died. And why did birds survive? One novel idea is that the survival of beaked, but not toothed birds is part of the answer. “Maintaining a mouth of sharp teeth comes with a reliance on animal food. […] A consumer that feeds on other consumers has very little to survive on now. But beaked birds do not face the same constraints” (p. 117). With the extinction of toothed birds and pterosaurs, the beaked birds were poised for an evolutionary radiation. Something similar happened with the mammals. Black prominently mentions the idea that Elsa Panciroli promoted in Beasts Before Us, that “it was competition between mammals that limited the number of different forms and niches Mesozoic mammals evolved into” (p. 158). With the extinction of more archaic mammaliaformes, the placental and marsupial mammals would flourish.
The second reason the book surpassed my expectations is Black’s reflections on the process of evolution and its role in ecological recovery. This is where her prose sings in places. One thousand years post-impact “[…] there is no script for what’s about to unfold, no cast of characters that inevitably must be filled” (p. 142). One million years post-impact a reptilian resurgence seems unlikely, but “the rise of the mammals is anything but assured […] When a global disaster ends one evolutionary dance, shifting the tempo, another begins, with no certainty as to who will lead” (p. 182). She poignantly notes how the fossil record “is not in any way a complete record of life on Earth. It is a record of fortuitous burials” (p. 254). And on the process of evolution, she writes how variation and happenstance provide “the raw material for natural selection and other evolutionary forces to shunt down different pathways. Not that there is any intent to this. It’s a passive state, a constantly running routine that is merely part of existence itself” (p. 196). This is music to my ears and Black’s writing is one of the highlights of this book.
Fossil of a dinosaur hand in a museum by Ivan Radic, via flickr.
Writing about such an iconic event carries the risk of intense scrutiny. No doubt, some experts and other palaeo-nerds will disagree with some of the details presented here. I think her appendix is sufficiently explicit about where she speculates and where she has chosen not to hedge her bets on different explanations. I was willing to read the book in this spirit, as one possible interpretation of how things might have unfolded, though one that Black carefully backs up with scientific evidence. My quibbles are rather minor instead. One is that the book has no index, the other is that there are no notes to the appendix. Relegating the discussion of the underlying science to the appendix is a defensible choice. But not properly referencing the studies mentioned here is, to me, a minor blemish on an otherwise excellent book.
If you have any interest whatsoever in dinosaurs and their extinction, this book comes highly recommended. Her take on the topic, dipping into the extinction and recovery at various moments post-impact, is novel. I am not familiar with other books attempting this. As a bonus, I expect that many readers will come away with a better understanding of the process of evolution.
In The Accidental Garden, author Richard Mabey takes the reader on a journey through his own garden in Norfolk and explores the possibility of nature becoming humankind’s equal partner. He watches as his ‘accidental’ garden becomes its own director and reorganises itself in its own way, with ants sowing cowslips in their own patterns, roses serendipitously sprouting amid gravel, moorhens nesting in trees and other fascinating interactions.
Richard Mabey has authored 30 books since becoming a full-time writer in 1974, a number of which have won awards, including the East Anglia Book Award, National Book Award and Whitbread Biography Award. He sat on the UK’s Nature Conservancy Council in the 1980s, has been awarded two Leverhulme Fellowships and three honorary doctorates, and became a Fellow in the Royal Society of Literature in 2011.
We recently had the opportunity to talk to Richard about his most recent book, where we discussed his approach to garden ‘by’ wildlife and the challenges he faced, the extent to which nature can thrive itself when human involvement is minimised, projects that are currently occupying his time and more.
Can you tell us what inspired you to write The Accidental Garden?
I’ve been meditating on many of the book’s themes for a long while – the paradox of our seeming new respect for nature co-existing with an obstinate reluctance to relinquish control; our obsession with tree-planting, as if trees have lost the ability to reproduce themselves; the lust for tidiness over vitality. What sparked the book – and set it in the theatre of our own garden – was a Dark Bush-cricket singing at midnight from the hollyhocks on that hottest-ever day in July 2022. It sounded like an anthem of hope.
Dark Bush Cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) by Dean Morely, via flickr.
You mentioned in the first chapter that you try to garden ‘by’ wildlife as much as for it. Have you faced any challenges while using this approach, and what tips would you give to someone who wants to try and garden by the wildlife and biodiversity found in their own patch?
The Accidental Garden isn’t an advice manual. It’s a hesitant, personal account of what happened when we opened the gate to what I call ’parallel development’ in our space. We do what humans do in gardens, and allow other organisms to do what they want. Allow them to become subjects rather than objects, and effectively become fellow gardeners. So I left the bramble patch be, instead of digging it up to plant some runtish nursery-forced oakling. Result: Field Maple and Hazel saplings growing through its protective thorniness. I kick bare patches in the grass and see what self-seeds. Broomrapes, Heartsease and Bee Orchids have been among the surprise settlers. If you’re prepared to junk judgemental labels like weeds and pests there are very few challenges from this approach.
There seems to be evidence that, if left to fend for itself, nature can thrive and colonise without human involvement, as seen along the Dorset coast in the 1800s. What do you think humankind can learn from this going forward?
I’m continually amazed that we find nature’s ability to thrive and adapt surprising. How else could the planet have supported an abundance of life for billions of years before humans arrived on the scene? The natural world has never lost that enterprise and agility. Our reluctance to take advantage of this, to capitalise on adaptive solutions to environmental change, is a typically arrogant stance by our species, still stuck in its ‘dominion over’ mode, and our loss, as well as the natural world’s.
As you mentioned in one of your chapters, many people relish how non-native plant species can transport you to other places, while they also play a key role in garden biodiversity and over time can become at home in the UK, as seen with Snowdrops and Horse Chestnut. How do you think we can nurture the inevitable introduction of new species without this disadvantaging native plants?
The only visiting species we have any trouble with is Ground Elder, and otherwise our patch is developing into a resilient fusion garden. Native plants and animals form new communities with benign settlers. I’m writing this in May just feet from a large and dazzling patch of self-sown flowers that have established themselves in the gravel round the house, including Red Campion, Green Alkanet, Lamb’s Lettuce, Red Valerian, Hedgerow Cranesbill, Ox-eye Daisies. My interest is in the vitality and autonomy of this community (and its insect life – Hummingbird Hawk-moths are the stars!). But in terms of pure visual attractiveness it would match any herbaceous border. I’m also pleased by the way Turkey Oaks are regenerating in and beyond our patch of treeland, growing alongside the Wild Cherries and Ashes, and proving more resistant to deer browsing than English Oaks. Of course, many newcomers cause trouble away from their home ground. But in an environment that is being damaged so much by climate change, we need new species to keep a biologically rich tapestry of life here, in case our traditional species have trouble coping. ‘Nativeness’ has always had strict time limits, at both ends.
Horse Chestnut – Aesculus hippocastanum by Judy Gallagher, via flickr.
What was the most interesting finding that you came across while undertaking this journey with your own garden?
I think learning about eliasomes, the little parcels of fat on the ends of many seeds that are ants’ rewards for acting as beasts of burden. (They ferry the seeds to their hills and feed the fat globules to their grubs.) Our red ants’ hills are now like living standing stones and I like to think they are responsible for Cowslips now carpeting most of our grassland.
What do you hope the reader can learn from The Accidental Garden?
I’ve been astonished by the inventiveness of our fellow beings when allowed a little leeway to do their own thing. When we drop our paternalistic attitude, our belief that we know best what should live where. Gardens are often compared to theatres, with the gardener as writer, director, set designer rolled into one. Can’t they also be open stages where uninvited, unsupervised species and ancient processes of colonisation and decay can improvise their own landscapes? In the 20 years we’ve been here one half of our plot has transformed itself into a kind of common, with patches of treeland and open grass, and a total of over 150 wild plant species arrived largely of their own accord. A garden is only in the smallest sense a microcosm and metaphor for the planet. But in it it’s possible to glimpse larger lessons about neighbourliness and cooperation, and the fact that the natural world is not intrinsically a victim, in need of constant intensive care.
What are you occupying your time with at the moment? Do you have any other books in progress that we can hear about?
At my age I should be put out to grass. But I can’t stop thinking and scribbling. I’ve just finished an expanded new edition of my 1993 book on the cultural history of Nightingales, Whistling in the Dark, out next year. And I’m dogged by a fancy of tracing the wild thread in the art of nature (always my second subject) from the cave paintings in Derbyshire to Andy Goldsworthy’s spring-flower-enclosing snowballs. But maybe I should just be content to use my walking stick (my Instrument of Minimum Intervention) to scratch more patches in the grass.
The Accidental Garden is available to pre-order from our bookstore.
Join author Kat Hill on a journey across England, Scotland and Wales to explore 15 remote bothies, and uncover the beauty, history and stories of these wild shelters. In this stirring book of adventure, peace, wilderness and refuge, she intertwines her own story of heartbreak and new purpose, while taking into consideration the environment, what we owe to it, and why we all crave escapes into the remote.
Kat Hill by Nicholas J. R
Kat Hill is a Senior Lecturer in History at Birkbeck College, London, and her current research project is focusing on questions of landscape, people, and heritage in the bothies of the Scottish Highlands, as well as non-conformist religious communities in Europe, America and the Global South. She holds a PhD from the University of Oxford in 2011, where she also received a British Academy Postdoctoral Award, and she authored the prize-winning book, Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief: Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585.
We recently chatted with Kat about what inspired her to write this book, how technology is changing the bothying experience, what she thinks the future holds for bothies and more.
Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to write a book about bothies?
I’m a writer and researcher living on the northern tip of the Isle of Skye. If I am not reading or thinking up project ideas, I am either out in the hills or beavering away at my other role, working with local communities for Highlands Rewilding. In my past life I was an academic historian (as well as an international Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitor), but last year I took voluntary redundancy from academia to pursue my writing and creative practice more fully, as well as aiming to do something good for the world in an age of climate crisis and environmental breakdown. That need, to work on something to do with the living world, was part of the inspiration for writing Bothy. I’d grown weary of academic life, and London in particular, my personal life was a mess, and I felt disconnected and unsettled. And then I got invited to a bothy, Cadderlie to be precise, on the edge of Loch Etive.
When I first went to Cadderlie, I never intended to write a book about bothies. But I loved the whole experience, and the more I found out about them, the more drawn I was to these shelters. They embodied so many things I was interested in – landscape, our connection to place, environmental histories, material histories of people and the living world, and just generally being active and outside. Finally, the plans I had for quite some time to change direction and escape the life I was living came to fruition. Especially with that weird caesura that Covid provided, I had space to make notes and think, and in that time, I found the ability to write in a way I had not thought possible. I did an MA in Environmental Humanities alongside my job, kept chipping away at the work and was lucky enough to find an amazing agent. This book is not a memoir per se, though there’s quite a bit of my life in it, but I would say it’s a personal response both to the challenges of my own life and to the crises we see around us.
Were there any authors or books in particular that inspired you when you set out to write Bothy?
There’s a real mix of things that shaped my writing, as I am sure is the case for any writer, but one of the things I most enjoyed in the process was taking inspiration from an eclectic mix of authors and books. Too many to name, but I’ll give a flavour. Nature and travel writing has always felt like such an obvious go to. I remember my mum introducing me to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts when I was younger and his combination of learned observation and vivid writing about the world captivated me. Other travel writing like Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley always spoke to me. As for more recent nature/travel writers, I love Cal Flyn’s work, Rebecca Solnit, Judith Schalansky’s books, and Nick Hayes’ Trespass, and I have immersed myself in environmental writing from so many people. To name a few – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Anna Tsing, Kathleen Jamie, Robert Macfarlane, and Andri Snær Magnason.
But there were also personal elements to the book, and so when I was thinking how you deftly discuss your life and its meaning, it was to writers such as Deborah Levy, Amy Liptrot and Helen Macdonald that I turned. Fiction and literature shaped the work, too, novels like The Overstorey or Ursula Le Guin’s novels, short stories and essays. And I’ve always loved poetry, though I am not sure I am bold enough to write it for others – although, who knows? – and countless collections sit on my shelf, from Edna St. Vincent Millay to Alice Oswald, Rainer Maria Rilke to Liz Berry.
At the heart, too, I have always drawn inspiration from my academic background and academic writers, mainly historians and archaeologists, for example Natalie Zemon Davis, Tim Ingold and Jane Bennett, but also philosophers. If you don’t know Timothy Morton’s book Dark Ecology, then I highly recommend it. I also always looked to those whose work is accessible beyond the world of scholarly writing. I was given a great lesson in that by my academic mentor Lyndal Roper, a historian of sixteenth-century Germany, and at the back of my mind was always the sensitive, layered, textured approach she had to writing about past lives.
People find solace and healing in all sorts of activities and all manner of things. Why do you think bothies were the thing that helped you at a time when you needed it?
It was a particular mix of things that made bothies so meaningful for me. I’d not been to Scotland much before Cadderlie, so part of it was being able to spend time outdoors and simply be active in beautiful landscapes. I grew up in Shropshire, so especially when I went to the Welsh bothies it felt like I was rekindling a connection to the younger version of myself. But they also stirred the historian’s interest in me because in the bothies there are visitor books which are left for anyone to sign, and these are a startling, intriguing record of ordinary lives. Given the chance to write a poem, draw a doodle or write out a life history, most people do. I’ve worked so often with archival documents that give hints of past lives and material histories of human stories that these felt like such a rich source.
I felt an immediate connection to the people on these pages. And I loved that, because bothies arrived in my life at a turning point, when I needed that connection. It was a funny, difficult time personally for me when I found bothies. I was struggling with what direction to take, and I am not going to lie, the previous decade had been dark, difficult, and filled with depression and anxiety. On the outside everything looked great. I was doing really well in my academic career, I was living in London in Hammersmith, I was competing in, and winning, BJJ tournaments all over the world. But underneath was a bone-deep exhaustion. The long aftermath of a divorce and then the trauma of a difficult, fractious, toxic relationship had taken its toll. I found bothies as I came out of that. I entered a new relationship and prised myself away from the life that was making me unhappy, I loved some of the anonymity yet intimacy that bothies gave – you never know who’s going to be there which produces a strange kind of bond with fellow travellers- and the respite they provided from normal rhythms of life was welcome. You have to lead a pretty simple life with only camping gear and what you carry with you, even if that retreat into plain living is a manufactured choice.
This process for me wasn’t sudden and revelatory. One thing I talk about in the book is that you don’t just go out into nature and find a cure. But there’s little doubt that the company of the living world (and finding time for connection, consideration, and above all perhaps, play) is soothing and healing. Everyone’s bothy experience will be different but for me, in these places, I was able to reshape myself after a difficult decade as someone who was once again creative, outdoorsy, adventurous, a nature lover, kind to others- someone who was happy.
Aberfeldy But’n Ben by Ronnie Fleming LRPS, via flickr.
Do you think that technology and social media have changed the bothying experience?
For example, now you can discover the details and locations of individual bothies online and then use a GPS to find your way there with ease. I never knew bothies before they were on Google maps, blogs and Instagram, so that’s always been my experience of the bothy world. But it’s certainly easier to find them now than it was in the 1970s or 1980s. It’s a different world, but I guess the key question for lots of bothy users is whether that alters or fundamentally destroys the bothy experience. Some would say yes, and I understand the frustration. Influencer posts about the same tourist spots in the world are wearying. And there is a very important debate to be had about responsible access to landscapes and environments, or the damage we can do as tourists. Working as I do in the rewilding sphere part of the time, I am often at the sharp end of these conversations about the tensions between human and non-human interests in a place, local and non-local needs.
However, I also don’t think that all of the online stuff is bad in the bothy world. To survive, they need to be used and a new generation is part of that. Bothies are rooted in the desire for access to the countryside and in the working class ‘revolution’ for leisure and recreation in the hills that followed World War One. Expensive hotels and fancy tours were out of reach for working young men and women who suddenly had a bit more time for leisure, but bothies were free. So I find the private club notion of bothies, of pulling up the ladder after you, more than a little problematic as it seems to go against the idea of access and the right to roam.
Some bothies have shut due to claims of overcrowding and parties – though I have never really seen raucous behaviour myself – but it’s all too easy to blame people without a voice as the culprits. Without labelling all landowners as evil either, this is really a debate about rights to the outdoors, access and how we develop responsible, caring relationships to landscapes. I think bothies can be part of that.
Some bothies remain secret and I, for one, am not going to plaster them over the internet. But I have seen so many young people with a copy of Geoff Allan’s Bothy Bible in hand, loving the outdoors, and that makes me happy. I am sure information sharing has changed the experience of bothying but nothing is ever static in the world. Indeed, perhaps it’s a particularly human thing to be nostalgic for the moment just past, to get misty eyed about days gone by, rather than live in the present moment and to enjoy that for what it is. It makes me think of a line from an Office US episode from Andy Bernard: ‘‘I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.’
How important do you think isolation is to the spirit and experience of the bothy?
There’s a really touching story, I talk about in the book which comes from a bothy visitor book entry. A man has returned to a bothy which he used to come to with his wife, their last trip of such a kind before she died of cancer. For him, as for so many others, the bothy may be relatively remote and cut off from some of the comforts of modern life but it’s not isolation per se that makes it special. It’s fellowship, companionship, love. Of course, there is a kind of isolation. But isolation from what is the key, as it’s not from people and places in a secluded wilderness, often quite the opposite as you will normally meet a new acquaintance. Some people do love being in a bothy alone and I have had delightful, quiet evenings by myself or with just a friend, but also plenty of entertaining nights with strangers.
But even when you are alone, you aren’t really isolated because you are connected to the place around you, from the bothy mouse to the howling wind, to bellowing stags to querulous birds. Besides, bothies only exist because these were, and are, lived, worked landscapes. To imagine you are in an isolated wilderness is to do them a disservice.
What do you think the future holds for bothies? Will they forever be old stone buildings, or will they evolve to include less traditional and/or newly built structures?
I’d say bothies already are evolving in new ways and there are some new MBA bothies opening up, more cottages reclaimed and restored. I’d like to think there will always be stone bothies withy smoky walls and wooden floors because they have given me so much. But the bothy idea has been taken in many different directions: such as artistic residencies run by Bothy Project, or the wonderful Taigh Whin bothy and house run by partners Sarah MacLaren and Sophie Howarth, which offers low-cost holiday accommodation for people working for the common good – carers, community workers, teachers. This place (the house of gorse, it means) is a beautiful reimagining of the idea of shelter and connection in a bothy.
And then there’s the luxury tourism bothy which is pretty far away from a traditional bothy, but I guess in some ways draws on the ideas of simplicity and shelter. The idea of a hut, a shelter, a shieling is malleable and changing but also speaks to a basic need for refuge or rest. So, the idea continues to have power, increasingly so perhaps in a fractured and complex world. And there’s a future to the bothy there, not just a past. The delicate balance of past and present is at the heart of bothy life, the retreat from modernity whilst knowing that this retreat is in some way dependent on the contrast the simple life provides with the contemporary. If there was no city or phone signal to escape from then I think bothies would be a whole different prospect.
That’s why I think there’s a future for humble bothies of the stone wall variety, alongside the fancier versions, as they have lessons to give us about what matters. They ask us to question what we need, what makes us happy, and what we can do without.
Finally, what is occupying your time at the moment (professionally and/or personally)? And can we expect more books from you in the future?
Life has been really busy, professionally and personally. I’ve just moved to Skye so I am enjoying settling into the new house: filling up bird feeders, painting walls and walking to the beach. In between writing and reading, I have a part time role as a community engagement co-ordinator for Highlands Rewilding so I have been learning more and more about the practical implications of changing land use, climate change and the delicate balance between people and places.
I don’t think I can ever imagine not writing though, so there’s plenty of scribbling too, some articles and grant pitches but also new book ideas. There will definitely be another book! Having moved about 15 times in ten years, it’s wonderful to have a home again and that’s starting to shape my writing too. When I was working in academia, I did a tonne of research on Amish and Mennonite migrations, so maybe there will be something about home and finding our place in this world.
I am also embarking on a multiyear interdisciplinary project with photographer Nicholas J R White on places of shelter and refuge across the world, places where people stay for a short while. We’ve just got back from the Shiant Isles in the Minch, a beautiful place. Soft in summer, I imagine, but we were there at the time of the season’s changing when there’s still harshness in the air, winds cold, seas wild and sun shining. It’s already provided lots of food for thought. I am also out in the US later this year for a fellowship at the IAS at Princeton, so I might find my way up to some fire lookouts à la Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac.
So, lots to keep me busy. Life is starting to settle again. I am in a happy place, surrounded by loving people. And I might even start some BJJ classes again.
Bothy is published by William Collins and is available to pre-order from our bookstore.
An exploration of botany for beginners, How to be a Bad Botanist is a must-read that opens our eyes to the world around us. Through this charming and inspiring work, Barnes takes us on a fascinating journey on the complex nature of plants, and enthrals us with tales to help us appreciate the diversity and wonder of the natural world.
Simon is an author and journalist who has worked on a number of nature volumes, including the bestselling Bad Birdwatcher trilogy and Rewild Yourself. He is a council member of the World Land Trust, a patron of Save the Rhino and honorary vice-president of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
We recently had the opportunity to talk with Simon about how plants caught his attention, the importance of botany and how we can all learn to be Bad Botanists.
How to be a Bad Birdwatcher, published in 2004, rapidly became a birdwatching classic and this year was republished as a 20th anniversary edition. What prompted you to turn your attention to plants for your latest book?
It all began with a damascene experience on Orford Ness. This is a place where military and natural history collide. On the same visit I was able to see a Great White Egret and the casing for an atom bomb. It was, I read, about the same size as the one they dropped on Hiroshima.
My brain was somewhat scrambled by this. After a while I sat on the beach, my mind full of life and death and memories of a visit to Hiroshima, pretending that I was having a bit of a sea watch. It was then that I noticed a colony of plants. Growing in the shingle. Which is impossible. But there they were. Growing. Living. And the extraordinary way that life seeks to live, even in the most difficult circumstances, really rather got to me. These strange plants seemed to make sense of this strange, awful and wonderful place.
I worked out that the plants in question were Sea Pea, Sea Kale and Yellow Horned Poppy: and my own life was better for doing so. Soon, I would be looking at old plants with new eyes.
How to Be a Bad Botanist is a fantastic exploration into the world of plants and botany itself. Where is a good place to start for aspiring botanists?
What’s required is a subtle but drastic mental shift. After my Orford Ness moment, it was clear that plants were now something to do with me. Something personal. I was doing what I wanted aspiring birders to do when I wrote How to be a Bad Birdwatcher. Only with plants.
And the first thing I wanted to do was to be introduced. To know the name. Always the first step towards greater intimacy. So, when I saw a tree, I found myself asking, what sort of tree? I made the delightful discovery that I knew more than I thought – oak, conker, holly. It wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to learn a few more – and all at once the adventure was gathering pace.
Yellow Horned Poppy by Cindy Lee Wright.
One of the first things that struck me about the book was how funny it is (I particularly enjoyed “my sitting was devoid of porpoise” when lamenting the lack of marine mammals spotted during a period observing the sea). Do you think humour and levity are important in providing a gateway into a topic that might originally seem highly specialist?
I’m glad you liked the porpoise joke. It’s one of those lines you know you really ought to cut, but haven’t the heart.
And yes, humour is essential. It’s essential to almost everything. Humour doesn’t compromise seriousness. Humours enriches life. There is humour in the greatest art – Ulysses, A la recherche du tempts perdu, Hamlet, The Waste Land, Metamorphoses. Humour humanises, bringing meaning and proportion to all we do. At a funeral, what touches us most deeply are funny stories from the life of a person we have lost.
Humour doesn’t make things trivial. When appropriate, humour makes things profound… in a funny sort of way.
Why do you think that botany is important and what can it bring to our lives?
Everything starts with plants. Plants are the only things that can eat the sun: the power of the sun allows them to make their own food, and that feeds everything else that lives (unless you live in a hydrothermal vent at the bottom of the sea, of course). Lions couldn’t live without plants: they just eat them at one remove.
Those of us who like nature tend to have areas of specialisation, and that’s only natural. But nature itself isn’t about separation: it’s about the way everything fits in together. You can’t really get a handle on your own specialist subject, no matter what it is, without understanding the way it’s driven by plants.
An illustrated Oak tree from How to be a Bad Botanist. Illustrated by Cindy Lee Wright.
The final chapter relates to a decline of the natural world – what more could we do to support our native wildflower populations in the UK?
The first thing to do is to look after any piece of land you have control over and make it richer and wilder. Sometimes neglect – what conservationists call “minimum intervention” – is the best policy, and it’s assiduously practiced at our place in the Broads.
The second is to support good organisations: your local county wildlife trust (and yes, there’s one for London) and the excellent Plantlife.
And after that, just show people wonderful stuff: here come the waterlilies, this pretty stuff on the riverbank is Purple Loosestrife and Hemp Agrimony, and round the next bend there’s an Aldercarr with nesting herons. By doing so, you enrich people’s lives as well as your own.
Other than buying your book, can you tell us one tip that you give to an aspiring ‘bad’ botanist?
Just look. Look, and seek a name. These days you can use phone apps like Pl@ntNet which will have a decent shot at identifying plants from flowers, leaves, even bark. But mostly it’s about that mental shift: making it personal. Last year it was a nice little yellow flower, this year it’s the first Lesser Celandine of spring and your heart can rejoice.
How to be a Bad Botanist is available to order from our online bookstore.
Reconstructing how dinosaurs behaved from just their fossilised bones might seem like science fiction but is very much science fact. In Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide, veteran palaeontology professor Michael J. Benton joins forces with palaeoartist Bob Nicholls to do what it says on the tin: write a richly illustrated introductory book on dinosaur behaviour that is well-suited for novices.
In Dinosaur Behaviour, Benton takes the reader through five main topics: physiology (which sets the pace for everything else), locomotion, senses and intelligence, feeding, and social behaviour (which includes courtship, reproduction, parental care, and communication). One or several ‘forensics’ boxes in each chapter introduce the basic gist of certain methods.
Reading through this book, it becomes abundantly clear that our understanding of dinosaur behaviour relies on two approaches. Though Benton does not mention it as explicitly as in his previous book The Dinosaurs Rediscovered, the first of these is new high-tech toys and tools. Examples include computed tomography (CT) scanners, normally used in hospitals, to make detailed X-ray scans of fossilised brains (so-called endocasts) and so determine brain anatomy.Or finite element analysis normally used in engineeringto model forces and stresses on jaws and teeth and so determine e.g. bite force. The second approach is ‘old-fashioned’ comparative anatomy and ethology: it pays to have a good knowledge of natural history when you are a palaeontologist. One example is the histological study of fossil dinosaur bones. Cutting thin bone sections and examining these under a microscope shows that some dinosaurs closely resemble mammals and birds, supporting the idea that smaller species were endotherms (‘warm-blooded’, i.e. generating their own body heat). Or take the microscopic study of melanosomes (pigment-containing organelles) in fossil feathers to determine colour in life. A final example is the comparison of footprints made by modern running birds with fossil tracks to determine things such as gait and running speed.
If you are well-versed in (popular) palaeontology, much of what is presented here will be familiar. Even so, I picked up interesting titbits. One example is a recent study of Psittacosaurus that describes a cloaca, the multipurpose orifice also seen in birds where the digestive, urinary, and reproductive tracts all open to the outside world. This suggests that dinosaur sex, for at least some species, was a matter of the appropriately named ‘cloacal kiss’ rather than the brandishing of reptilian genitals. Other insights fell into the embarrassing ‘I should have known this’ category. We tend to think of walking on two legs as something advanced because our mammalian ancestors walked on all fours, but for dinosaurs, it was the reverse; they started out bipedal and quadrupedality only evolved later in e.g. the large sauropods. Particularly interesting is the study by Kat Schroeder and colleagues who looked at fossil communities of theropods and noticed a so-called carnivore gap: there is a lack of medium-sized ones in the fossil record, even though there are medium-sized herbivores. One explanation could be that dinosaur eggs had an upper size limit, meaning that young carnivores hatched small and had an awful lot of growing to do. As they did, ‘they passed through a whole range of feeding modes, each step along the way acting like a different species’ (p. 137), effectively plugging the ecological niche of medium-sized carnivores.
Despite the broad range of topics, there are some curious omissions. The chapter on feeding e.g. discusses jaws, teeth, and the use of isotopes to determine diet, but not microwear analysis of teeth. What I found most surprising is that Benton does not introduce the concept of trace fossils or ichnology, their study. Yet, examples such as trackways (some possibly showing long-distance migrations), coprolites (fossil poop), and nests are all discussed here. Another surprising omission is that the two-page bibliography does not include most studies mentioned in the text, even though it references other technical articles.
Dinosaur Behavior is mostly very suitable for readers with little to no background in palaeontology. Benton explains even basic terminology (physiology, cannibalism) as he goes, though there is the occasional curveball. One example is the morphospace diagram showing a principal component analysis on page 131, which, I hope those with a background in statistics will agree, is a rather abstract way of visualizing data that requires a bit more explanation than is given here. Though the book is published by Princeton University Press, it has been produced by UniPress Books who can be considered the spiritual successor to popular science publisher Ivy Press. What this means is that information is accessibly presented in bite-sized sections on one or several page spreads, with long sections further divided using subheadings. The downside is that this restricts how thoroughly topics can be explored. Leafing through e.g. Naish & Barrett’s Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved shows more nuance in its chapter on behaviour.
Finally, I have to mention the excellent colour and black-and-white artwork by Bob Nicholls that livens up the text. I loved the drawing of courtship in Confusiusornis on pages 168–169. Despite the overlap in topic, this is all-new artwork compared to Locked in Time. Other diagrams have all been carefully designed or redrawn, using colours where appropriate. The only design element that did not work for me was the choice of sans-serif font which made e.g. the letters ‘a’ and ‘o’ hard to tell apart.
Serious palaeontology buffs might find the contents here somewhat superficial, but overall, this is a handsomely illustrated book that offers an accessible introduction suitable for novices and possibly even curious high-school pupils. It would also make for a great gift.
The latest volume in the New Naturalist series, Stoats, Weasels, Martens & Polecats focuses on the four species of ‘small mustelids’ – highly specialised predators and ubiquitous assassins, some of which were once hunted to near-extinction. This delightfully rich text details their physiology, distribution, daily lives, significance in UK history and folklore, while also intertwining the authors own experiences working at the forefront of mustelid conservation across England and Wales.
Bjørn Olav Tveit lives in Oslo, Norway and has explored many of the country’s best birding sites throughout his life. He is a long-standing member of the Norwegian Rarity Committee for Birds and acts as the nature conservation contact for his local BirdLife Norway division. He runs bird-spotting guided tours for nature enthusiasts, composes music, authors books and works for the Norwegian Ministry of Culture.
Firstly, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into birdwatching?
Join author Kat Hill on a journey across England, Scotland and Wales to explore 15 remote bothies, and uncover the beauty, history and stories of these wild shelters. In this stirring book of adventure, peace, wilderness and refuge, she intertwines her own story of heartbreak and new purpose, while taking into consideration the environment, what we owe to it, and why we all crave escapes into the remote.
