Jim Crumley
Jim Crumley is the author of more than forty books, mostly on the wildlife and wild landscape of his native Scotland, many of them making the case for species reintroductions, or ‘rewilding’. His Seasons series, a quartet of books exploring the wildlife and landscapes and how climate change is affecting our environment across the four seasons, is highly acclaimed. The Nature of Autumn was longlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017 and shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017. The third in the series, The Nature of Spring, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week. The Nature of Summer, was shortlisted for the 2021 Highland Book Prize. The Eagle’s Way was shortlisted for a prestigious Saltire Society award, and his Encounters in the Wild series – which sees Jim get up close and personal with Britain’s favourite animals – has found him many new readers. He has written about the return of the beaver to the UK’s wetlands in Nature’s Architect, and his most recent title is Lakeland Wild, his first to focus entirely on an English landscape. Lakeland Wild was longlisted for the 2022 Lakeland Book of the Year prize. Jim is also a poet, an occasional broadcaster on both radio and television and a widely published journalist who wrote columns for the Dundee Courier for many years and has a monthly column in The Scots Magazine.
The Seasons quartet is now available in one handsome hardback edition, Seasons of Storm and Wonder.
Barn Owl
by Jim Crumley
In the encounters in the wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the barn owl. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. “The barn owl is an ambassador for life on the edge. It is the night owl that also hunts fearlessly by day; the silent flier with a sudden shriek that can shatter glass; the restless sentry of the outside edge of the woods with one ear attuned to the grassy banks and the other to the first and last tree shadows; the stone-still embellishment on a country kirkyard gravestone beyond the edge of the village, looking in moonlight like nothing so much as the sculptor’s final inspired flourish.”
REVIEWS OF Barn Owl
'An utter delight, and I cried more than once for the sheer beauty of the writing and descriptions of watching wildlife.' - Jennifer Tetlow Read more
