Take Advantage Of Wild Hares And Hummingbirds: The Natural History Of An English Village Planned By Stephen Moss Published As Pamphlet

thoroughly enjoyed this monthbymonth visit to the British countryside, It so made me wish I had a little cottage somewhere in an English village, The title illustrations for each month by Harry Brockway were wonderful as well, This is the second book in a row I've read which has the author spending a year exploring and learning about where they live.
The first book was Meadowland by John LewisStempel where each character was a month and the book was based in his meadow, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds is done on a bigger scale, this time a whole village and it's surrounding area, The nicest thing about Moss's book is he is still learning about nature, discovering new things all the time and getting help when needed.
When he does get help he includes the reader on that learning experience, one of the best parts of the book was training on foraging for mushrooms, this is something I've always wanted to do, instead of using the eat and see what happens technique.


The village he lives in, Mark bizarre name for a village comes across as being very idyllic and supplies Moss with a number of places to explore, bridges, churchyards, meadows and woods.
The range of animals his sees is incredible, makes what you see in Basingstoke very dull, and his knowledge of birds is fantastic, I'm so jealous that he is able to name a bird so quickly.


The one thing I'm going to try and remember from this book is Teasels, we get them in Basingstoke and I've always wondered what they are, whether they were related to thistles or not, now I know all about them and can tell my kids next time we spot one.


Great book, full of knowledge and fun to read,

Blog review is heregt sitelink wordpress. com/ A beautifully written book about a year in an English villiage and the wildlife he encounters month by month, A beautiful and gentle nature diary of one year in the village of Mark in the Somerset Levels, The author, Stephen Moss, naturalist, birder, writer and one of my favourite BBC broadcasters, moved with his family from London to Somerset for a better quality of life.
He documents, in the tradition of Gilbert White, the changing of the seasons, charting the arrival, emergence, departure and fortunes of various birds, butterflies, moths and other fauna and flora in his adopted village.
Vividly descriptive and informative he cant help but reveal his passion for nature and his deep connection to the natural world and its wonders.
But we are also given the wider view and shown how the events of this small corner of the countryside have much to tell us about the state of Britain's countryside in general and elsewhere on the planet and gives some idea as to which creatures are already the winners or losers in climate change.
An engaging and informative read, I thoroughly enjoyed it, A very engaging and evocative book, Didn't finish it. Very much enjoyed this book, . . It is a through the seasons view of an area around a Somerset village, . . Much from a family perspective, . . I couldn't get into this book, I believe this was because it felt like Moss has a ticklist approach to natural history, He likes to put names to species, add them to his list and move on to looking for others, He is clearly very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about birds but didn't really fire me with his passion, And some of the background on the animals was awfully trivial and generally well know by anyone with half an eye on the natural environment.
It was also a rather negative book repeatedly mentioning the decline of this and that species, and while this is something we all mourn I needed some joy too.
For that you'll need to go to the wonderful Michael McCarthy's Moth Snowstorm or the Running Hare, I was also felt a little mislead by the title too, Moss doesn't seem that interested in hares he's a birder principally,
Finally he came across as a bit of a townie and I was unsurprised he'd moved to Somerset from London with his five children.
I picture him loading the family up into the SUV and going off to the Mendips locals call it Mendip to criticize the blot on the landscape that is the M, that fecund townie like him use often while burning the planet.

Didn't finish it! A fine evocation of a year in the life of one parish on the Somerset Levels, especially its wildlife, I expected to like this book, but I found the writing style skittish and jumpy and just couldn't get into it enough to find it a pleasurable read.
This is the diary of one man's year in the countryside of southwest England, Having moved from the city five years prior, he is both able to be a part of the rural natural world's daily motions, and see the beauty in every bit.
It is normal for a person to become so acclimated to a place that they accept everything as normal, and thereby lose their sense of wonder when it comes to the nature that surrounds them.
But in Moss' case, the more he acclimates, the more complexities of the world are revealed to him, and thus the more his amazement grows.
A reverent joy is on each page of this book: joy taken in the ordinary happenings of his countryside, joy in how it all comes together in one wheel of life itself.
Month by month, he leads us through different places and to different seasonal faunal activities, and by the end we feel sad to say goodbye, but know that the little world of Mark, England, will be just as beautiful in our absence as when we explored it through these pages.


For now, at least for it is a surety that one day everything will change in response to climate shifts, as Moss briefly touches upon near the end.
Some animals will migrate, many will eventually fade, and what we know as the English countryside will be irrevocably changed forever,

In that sense, this book will become a remembrance of a special, simple place in an era when it was still what we thought it to be.
But though it may become a eulogy one day, it will always beat it is today, when the natural world of Mark is still what exists within these pagesa wondering, tender, and utterly delighted celebration.


A note: the only detraction I found in the book was the proliferation of commas, His writing has a wonderful, natural flow to it, but his use of unnecessary commas interrupts it to no end, While this issue exists in the whole of the book, the material itselfalong with the other facets of his writing abilitiesstill warranted five.
England doesnt have any hummingbirds, but it does have hummingbird hawkmoths, which explains the title, In the tradition of Gilbert White, Moss writes a monthbymonth tribute to what he regularly sees on his home turf of Mark, Somerset, As I did with Mark Cockers sitelinkClaxton, I picked up the book partway at the month in which I started reading it and when I reached the end, returned to the beginning and read up to my starting point.
Controversial, I know, but that July to June timeline worked fine: it gave me familiar glimpses of whats going on with English nature now, followed by an accelerated preview of what I have to look forward to in the coming months.


Moss is primarily a birder, so he focuses on bird life, but also notes whats happening with weather, trees, fungi, and so on.
In the central and probably best chapter, on June, he maximizes wildlifewatching opportunities: going eel fishing, running a moth trap, listening for bats, and looking out for unfamiliar plants.
My minor annoyances with the book were the toofrequent references to “the parish,” which makes the books concerns seem parochial rather than microcosmic, and the common use of semicolons where commas and dashes would be preferable.
But if youre fond of modern nature writing, and have some familiarity with or at least interest in the English countryside, I highly recommend this as a peaceful, observant read.
Plus, Harry Brockways blackandwhite engravings heading each chapter are exquisite,

Favorite lines:

“Being in one place is also the best way to understand the passing of the seasons: not the great shifts between winter and spring, summer and autumn, which we all notice but the tiny, subtle changes that occur almost imperceptibly, from week to week, and day to day, throughout the year.
”

“For me, one of the greatest pleasures of living in the English countryside is the way we ourselves become part of the natural cycle of the seasons.
”


Originally published on my blog, sitelinkBookish Beck, Simply one of the best nature books I've read, A year on Stephen's local patch will make you want to get out and discover yours! Strangely disappointing, This book makes all the right noises and should be really enjoyable, but left me with the impression of being written by a 'townie' albeit a reasonably knowledgeable, observant one, without the insights of a countryman.

Wundervoll und wirklich meditativ geschrieben, und dabei auch noch unglaublich informativ! Bei den Eigennamen der Vögel, Insekten und Pflanzen bin ich zwar an die Grenzen meines englischen Vokabulars gestoßen, aber das Internet weiß alles.
Ich bin verliebt in dieses Buch! Despite the title, Moss' shows a clear bias towards birds in his book, There's nothing wrong with that, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a wee bit disappointing for only getting a single passage on hares.


Moss captures the rustic beauty of a quintessential English countryside, His prose is a poetic comfort to read and a refreshing blend of both science and anecdote, The book is divided into twelve chapters corresponding to each month of the year, and the observations held within, The end result is a book that every fan of nature writing should have on their shelf, A beautifully descriptive book, that is also informative, A book I shall keep on my bookshelf and refer to again month by month, Naturalist and author Stephen Moss lives in one of the longest villages in England Mark, on the Somerset Levels, This watery wonderland is steeped in history: it is the land of King Arthur, where King Alfred burnt the cakes and where the last battle was fought on English soil.


This ancient country parish, dating from before the Domesday Book, has been reclaimed from the sea over many centuries, Today the landscape bears witness to its eventful past, and is crisscrossed with watery ditches and broad droves, down which livestock was once taken to market.
These are now home to a rich selection of resident and visiting wildlife: rooks and roe deer sparrows and snowdrops buzzards, badgers and butterflies.
Amongst these natural wonders are the 'wild hares and hummingbirds' of the Wild Hares and Hummingbirds's title: one of our most iconic mammals, the brown hare and a scarce and spectacular visitor, the hummingbird hawkmoth.


As the year unfolds, Stephen Moss creates an intimate account of the natural history of his parish, He witnesses the landscape as it passes from deep snow to spring blossom, through the heat haze of summer to the chill winds of autumn from the first hazel catkins to the swallows returning from Africa the sounds of the dawn chorus to the nocturnal mysteries of moths.


But this is not simply the story of

one small corner of the West Country it also serves as a microcosm of Britain's wider countryside.
At a time of uncertainty as our landscape and wildlife face some of the greatest changes in recorded history it reveals the plants and animals that will adapt and thrive, and those that may struggle, and even disappear from our lives.


This is a very personal celebration of why the natural world matters to all of us, wherever we live, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds is naturewriting at its finest, expressed through the natural history of one very special place, I found myself submerged into the sense of place, It was a wonderful walk through the seasons of the Somerset levels, I enjoyed learning about the wildlife found there and I yearned to be walking those same paths, Entry level wildlife reading, making for comforting if not especially profound reading, I couldn't help wondering how different this book would have been had it covered the winter of, when Mark and the surrounds were hit by floods.
Librarian Note: there is than one author with this name in the Goodreads database, Stephen Moss is a naturalist, broadcaster, television producer and author, In a distinguished career at the BBC Natural History Unit his credits included Springwatch, Birds Britannia and The Nature of Britain, His books include The Robin: A Biography, A Bird in the Bush, The Bumper Book of Nature, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds and Wild Kingdom.
He is also Senior Lecturer in Nature and Travel Writing at Bath Spa University, Originally from London, he lives with his family on the Somerset Levels, and is President of the Somerset Wildlife Trust, He is a regular contributor to the Guardian, .