WILD AIR: In Search of Birdsong

Sit still and listen, and open this enchanting book about birds, birdsong and the countryside from the critically acclaimed author of Raptor. Lockhart sets out to write about a series of birds from a nightjar's strange churring song on a heath in the south of England, to a lapwing displaying over the machair in the Outer Hebrides. He writes about eight different and fascinating birds in a journey inspired by a story his granny told him of how she used to relay the songs of birds to her increasingly deaf father, the famous naturalist Seton Gordon. The eight species are all representative of a different habitat. Nightjars on a lowland heath; shearwaters on a mountain overlooking the sea, dippers on a river; skylarks in farmland; ravens in woodland; divers on a loch; lapwings on the coast; and nightingales in dense scrub. Not all of the birds are songbirds in the traditional sense, although each possesses its own distinctive musical voice which can vary from the strange to the joyous - the weird gurgling sound of a shearwater in its burrow to the exuberance of the skylark's song. Each is an audible introduction to the birds and the places where they are found. Poetry, folklore and natural history are woven into the mix and a dipper's stream is painted as vividly as the songbird itself giving a clear sense of the cold running water and mossy banks. 342pp, line art.