Reading & Writing

There is something very powerful about the written word. Truly, its ability to inform, motivate, stir emotions, and do deeper, more profound things, simply through the thoughtful arrangement of language on a page, is almost magical. At its best, good writing can transport you from sofa to other-world, where the narrative plays out before your mind's very eyes. And because we are in the month of June, with the relentless early-morning alarm calls of April and May no longer a sleep-sapping fact of birding life, I've been looking out for some decent reading matter. Some books for bedtime.

Recently I re-read Beguiled by Birds, DIM Wallace's opus on British birdwatching. Published in 2004, it is still a thought-provoking, relevant read. I do find Ian Wallace's writing style quite a challenge though. A good challenge. I'm quite happy to be stretched a bit by tricky sentence construction and a demanding vocabulary. Finishing it has whetted my appetite for some more nice prose.

Like this lot...

I used to have a paperback copy of Mark Cocker's Tales of a Tribe, but think it must have fallen foul of a ruthless stocktake at some stage. I like hardbacks anyway, and a second-hand copy was pretty cheap. So that, and Dave Goulson's The Garden Jungle are lined up for future attention.

Mrs Pankhurt's Purple Feather by Tessa Boase dates from 2018, but has just been published in paperback under the new title Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds. Etta Lemon was a founder of the RSPB, and its principal driving force in the early days. Until very recently I had no idea that the charity was instituted by women determined to stamp out 'murderous millinery', the hideous Victorian fashion for feathered hats which cost the lives of millions and millions of birds, pushing several species to the brink of extinction. A fashion which fuelled a monstrous industry. I'm about a third of the way through, and what a mind-boggling world it reveals. Fascinating, and really well written.

Fallon's Angler is a quarterly magazine, and a recent experimental dip into angling writing. Advert free, it bears absolutely no resemblance to your average specialist mag. Roughly 100 pages of varied and original content, notably without a single instructional sentence. It arrived yesterday morning, and I'd consumed every word by lights-out. There is even a cryptic crossword on the last page, which will get some attention tonight I think. I couldn't help noticing that many of the contributors are of my generation, and perhaps that's why it struck a chord. From gentle humour to a poignant look at a father and son's relationship, it covered a lot of ground. Superb.

Fellow blogger Stewart Sexton recently emailed a few pages of a now-defunct angling publication called Waterlog, and the content of Fallon's Angler appears to have a similar vibe. It must be difficult to make any non-digital publication pay its way these days, let alone one with no adverts, but it is a shame that birding doesn't have something in this vein. However, maybe there's an alternative...

On Twitter I currently 'follow' some 377 other tweeters, the vast majority birders or bird-related accounts. It's the only social media platform that holds any interest for me, and one big attraction is that some of those I follow do quite frequently post links to interesting reading matter. In a few cases, like me, they promote their own blogs. Or they might link to someone else's writing. Either way, I've enjoyed many an excellent read by this means. One or two have been refreshingly controversial and stimulating. It would be great if my favourites were assembled into some kind of anthology, but in the meantime I'll just enjoy what pops up on my Twitter timeline.

And of course, reading good stuff is a constant source of encouragement to try and write some good stuff. I can't promise 'controversial and stimulating' but I can promise shamelessly promotional tweets on Twitter.