Swan

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 โ€˜rewildingโ€™. 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.ย  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.ย  The Eagleโ€™s Wayย was shortlisted for a prestigious Saltire Society award, and hisย Encounters in the Wild series โ€“ which sees Jim get up close and personal with Britainโ€™s favourite animals โ€“ has found him many new readers. He has written about the return of the beaver to the UKโ€™s wetlands in Natureโ€™s Architect, and his most recent title is Lakeland Wild, his first to focus entirely on an English landscape.ย Lakeland Wildย 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.

Swan

by Jim Crumley

  • RRP: ยฃ7.99 (print)
  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN: 9781916812666
  • Publication date: May 7, 2026

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In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. 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.

โ€œThe birches, the larches, the mountain grasses and the reed bed are all afire, sparkling after sleety rain and in fitful sunlight. It is as if nature has contrived its finest theatrical stage set and then turned up the colour. There are stags roaring, for it is the season of the red deer rut. There are golden eagles in the mountains, peregrines and ravens on nearby crags, and otters on the river. Every spring, reliably at the nesting season, the place floods spectacularly. I have come here to watch a pair of mute swans.โ€

Prizes and awards

Lakeland Book of the Year prize 2022: Longlisted
Highland Book Prize 2021: Shortlisted
Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017: Longlisted
Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017: Shortlisted
Saltire Society Literary Award 2014: Shortlisted