Good books to curl up with

Ihave just finished an utterly absorbing book – The Seabird’s Cry, The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers, by Adam Nicolson. The ocean voyagers are “creatures of the high latitudes and distant oceans” and include albatross and gannets, kittiwakes, shearwaters, fulmars and gulls – “pelagic wanderers and wind-buffeted migrants”.

All are totally at home on land, at sea and have a mastery of the air. Nicolson gives us an insight into the way their bodies work, their astonishing abilities to navigate for tens of thousands of miles across featureless seas, their ability to smell their way towards fish and home – and the strategies and tactics needed to survive and thrive in the most demanding environment on the planet.

With photos, and illustrated by Kate Boxer, the book should appeal to readers who care about the natural world.

Book affections

The Seabird’s Cry got me thinking about other books that have left their mark on me.

The evergreen Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame crosses the generations. Written as a bedtime story for his young son, it recounts the adventures and misadventures of Mole, Ratty, Badger, Toad and their friends.

Another, David Stephen, was a selftaught naturalist/conservationist, writer and photographer with an immense understanding of the natural world and a special empathy with animals. I admired the integrity of his writing and enjoyed his wildlife column with authentic descriptions of the Scottish landscape which appeared in The Scotsman newspaper.

Writing under the pen name of BB, Denys Watkins-Pitchford was a lifetime countryman and one-time art master at Rugby School – so he understood boys.

Brendon Chase probably wouldn’t be published nowadays which might be the best reason for reading it. To avoid going back to school three brothers run away to live in the forest where they shoot and trap rabbits, birds, a deer, a pig, to survive. They go feral – fishing, taking birds’ eggs to eat and making clothes from rabbit skins.

Written for an earlier generation these things may offend today’s sensitivities, but the book conveys BB’s love and intimate knowledge of the countryside. Wilds of Canada

For Christmas 1950 my father bought me Cache Lake Country, Life in the Canadian North Woods by John J Rowlands, a charming and instructive book about woodcraft and the ways of the wilderness and the animals and the birds, which probably planted early seeds of enquiry into the natural world.

In the 1930s Rowlands set out by canoe into the wilds of Canada to survey timber prospects for his company. After paddling alone for several days he came upon the lake of his boyhood dreams which he named Cache Lake, because there was stored the best that the north had to offer – timber for a cabin, fish, game and berries to live on and the peace and contentment he felt he could not live without.

Packed with folklore and philosophy, every page breathes wisdom gathered at first hand about the woods and the demands they place on a man for inventiveness and self-reliance.

Just room to mention Sea Change, The Summer Voyage from East to West Scotland of the Anassa by Mairi Hedderwick, of the Katie Morag stories. A six-week Swallows and Amazons-style sea voyage through the Caledonian Canal and up the west coast undertaken by the author and an old family friend, before she leaves her home on Coll in the Hebrides, inspiration for Katie Morag’s Isle of Struay, to retire to the mainland.

Beautifully illustrated by the author, a real page turner.

“Fishing, taking birds’ eggs to eat and making clothes from rabbit skins

My books – a treasure trove of stories and information.