At the Water's Edge: A Personal Quest for Wildness

by John Lister-Kaye

Overview

For the last thirty years John Lister-Kaye has taken the same circular walk from his home deep in a Scottish glen up to a small hill loch. Each day brings a new observation or an unexpected encounter - a fragile spider's web, an osprey struggling to lift a trout from the water or a woodcock exquisitely camouflaged on her nest - and every day, on his return home, he records his thoughts in a journal.

Drawing on this lifetime of close observation, At The Water's Edge encourages us to look again at the nature around us, to discover its wildness for ourselves and to respect and protect it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847674050
Publisher:	Canongate Books
Publication date:	03/09/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sir John Lister-Kaye is one of Britain's best-known naturalists and conservationists and the author of eight books on wildlife and the environment. He has served prominently in the RSPB, the Nature Conservancy Council, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. In 2003 he was awarded an OBE for services to nature conservation. He lives with his wife and family among the mountains of the Scottish Highlands, where he runs the world-famous Aigas Field Centre.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

1 The Lie of the Land 9

2 Spring at Last 21

3 Dreams in a Jar 31

4 King of the Castle 49

5 Dawn 67

6 Energy and the Big Deal 93

7 Wild 111

8 The Claim 145

9 Summer's Green Stain 163

10 Pine Martens 175

11 An Explosion of Flowers 185

12 The Autumn Stalk 201

13 Iceland and the Whoopers 229

14 The Goshawk 243

15 Pop Goes the Weasel 255

16 Winter 271

Postscript 289

References, Further Reading and Bibliography 303

Thanks and Acknowledgements 307

Editorial Reviews

John Lister-Kaye is one of the most joyful, inspirational naturalists I know. This wonderful collection of wildlife encounters will make anyone want to pull on their boots and re-discover the world on our doorsteps.

Kate Humble

Dedicated conservationist Lister-Kaye has spent much of his life in solitary contemplation of his environment . . . This is a quiet but rousing call to action for anyone who loves the natural world and wants to help preserve it.

Sunday Telegraph

I'd put it in the hands of anyone who ever enjoyed a day out in the fresh air, even those who don't think they like the countryside: they've got to be seduced by this prose

BBC Radio Scotland - Claire English

A thoughtful analyst of the evolutionary interplay between human being and animal.

The Times

Every word of John Lister-Kaye's At the Water's Edge sounds with a long, close knowledge of place, with a profound appreciation and anticipation of each small change brought by the progression of a day or of a season. Beautifully observed and rich in description, the book sounds too with an urgent voice, warning of what will be lost to us should we continue to take too little action to protect the natural world

author of CORVUS - ESTHER WOOLFSON

A book of land-knowing by someone who has spent a gentle lifetime learning the languages of animals. With an untameable enthusiasm and generosity of spirit, Lister-Kaye translates those languages into a kind of inter-species friendship

Jay Griffiths

For 30 years, British naturalist ListerKaye (Nature's Child) has taken the same walk every day from his home in the Scottish Highlands to a nearby loch. In these "rekindled" observations from his field diary, he records the life humming on the "uncompromising" crags; he waxes on the beauty of peregrine falcons roosting on rock ledges, the happy clamor of osprey and otters feasting on trout, the poetry of photosynthesis, and as the seasons turn, he records the new litters, the migrations, and decay. If Lister-Kaye shifts his focus from the Highlands--to marvel at how tropical birds and flowers have evolved together, with "orchids mimicking butterflies and spiders," or sea algae's dependence on chemosynthesis--it's only to return ineluctably to his glen and its particular place in the world. This lyrical and precisely observed book (think Annie Dillard's A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) is an ode to the wonder of nature, "its sublime design and grim function," the miracle of interspecies friendships, and a cri de coeur to find the political will for conservation. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"An environmental classic to stand alongside Leopold's Sand County Almanac."  —Spectator on Song of the Rolling Earth

From the Publisher