Instantly recognisable by their spindly legs, probing feelers, huge eyes, dislocated looking thorax and hairy bodies, ants are everywhere, a hugely successful species. Packed with outstanding macrophotography, each ant species is shown in their natural habitat and close-up to highlight identification features. It is a groundbreaking book representing the first accessible field guide to the ants of Britain and Europe, covering 400 species and including detailed descriptions of more than 150 of the most commonly encountered. We are given an introduction to ant ecology, guidance on where to look for ants and how to study them in the field, an overview of families and identification key, plus accurate distribution map, confusion species, habitat and biology. 600 colour photos, 416pp in sturdy softback.

A profound meditation on climate change and the Anthropocene and an urgent search for the fossil - industrial, chemical, geological - that humans are leaving behind. Farrier explores what traces we will leave in the very deep future, from long-lived materials like plastic and nuclear waste, to the 50 million kilometres of roads spanning the planet. In modern times we have created numerous objects and landscapes with a potential to endure through deep time. Our carbon could linger on the atmosphere for 100,000 years, and the remains of our cities will still exist millions of years from now as a layer in the rock. These future fossils have the potential to tell remarkable stories about how we lived in the 21st century. Through literature, art and science, the book invites us to think about how we will be remembered by our distant descendants. Travelling from the Baltic Sea to the Great Barrier Reef, and from an ice core laboratory in Tasmania to Shanghai, one of the world's biggest cities, fossilised remains will speak of life rather than death. Even the contents of our sandwiches will tell a story. 60 billion chickens are killed for human consumption each year and in the future, fossilised chicken bones will be present on every continent within a layer in the geological strata, as a testimony to the intrusion of human appetites in the geological record. 'In my search for future fossils, I look to the air, the oceans, and the rock, from a bubble of ice drawn from the heart of Antarctica to a tomb for radioactive waste deep beneath the Finnish bedrock.' 307pp.

A new way to accept the return to the old way of looking at our gardens as natural and wild spaces and allowing nature to reclaim them a little. Divided into mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates and plants, the book begins with foxes and badgers, often seen in gardens, one relying on scraps and the other finding room for digging a sett. Stoats, hedgehogs, shrews, squirrels, bats and rats, crows, thrushes and starlings, tree sparrows with their noisy chirruping call and chestnut coloured crown, ducks and geese before we move on to a very brief section on the common grass snake, frogs and toads and then fish like the minnow, the quintessential stream fish and the eel which travels out to sea for several years before returning to our rivers having reached adulthood. Finally, beetles, ants, wasps and bees, dragonflies and damselflies and all manner of moths and beautifully coloured butterflies displayed in a gallery of colour photographs. Worms and centipedes and a note on plants like algae and mosses, these hundreds of colour photographs and text are printed on glossy quality paper. Large softback. 136pp.

A book about Britain's wildlife, how to discover it and the adventures we can have with it right here on our doorstep. In a world where nature is slowly being replaced by technology and material things, every single one of us could do with appreciating the flora and fauna that we have. To spend time in the outdoors exploring, searching and learning teaches us that there is life beyond out laptops and that it needs our help. Written by a young conservationist who details her own small adventures travelling in the UK in search of wildlife encounters, from ancient forests and coastal wildernesses, to bustling city streets an suburban back gardens, nature is everywhere if you know where to look. In her engaging and witty prose she has beautiful descriptions of wildlife including beaches, woodland, island and urban spaces detailing the best places to spot wildlife, tips and animal 'etiquette'. We meet seals and seabirds, whales and dolphins, understand dune systems and sparrowhawks, estuarine wildlife, ospreys and insects, hen harriers and moorland life, red squirrels, bats and owls, foxy city slickers, a graveyard that's very much still alive, garden birds and insects and how to encourage them into your garden. Best of all are the original illustrations and fabulous colour photographs by the author who has featured on BBC Wildlife and New Nature magazines. 192 big glossy pages in softback.

Entomologist and TV presenter Dr George McGavin looks at the weird and wonderful world of insects and reveals how they created our world and how they could shape our future. Insects conquered the Earth long before we did and will remain here long after we are gone. They outnumber us in the billions and are essential to keep many of the natural processes that keep us alive and that we take for granted, and every page is a very readable argument that we should appreciate the hidden world of six-legged creatures far more. McGavin takes a deep dive to reveal the unknown truths about the most successful and enduring animal groups the world has ever seen and explores not only the incredible traits that insects have evolved to possess, such as dragonflies that can fly across oceans without resting, or beetles that can lay their eggs exclusively in corpses, but also the vital lessons we have learned from them, including how therapy using maggots can save lives, and how bees can help grow rich tomato yields. The four distinct groups are millipedes and centipedes with elongated bodies and lots of pairs of legs, eight legged species such as mites and scorpions, crustaceans such as shrimp, crabs and lobsters and barnacles with a few terrestrial species such as woodlice and the fourth and by far biggest group are the Insecta, which comprise ¾ of all animal species, and well over half of all known species and their total biomass is at least ten times that of all humans and our livestock combined. Let's let that fact sink in... Crawling with detail and glowing with extraordinary facts and rich with humour and personality. 266pp.

Translated from the French and sub-titled 'A Lifetime Journey to the Sources of Nature's Scents' we have never come across a book quite like this one. 'Reminiscent of the Queen of Sheba, a collector and distiller of resins is smelling the beauty of her frankincense in Somaliland, where the journey of perfume started, 50 centuries ago' it says on the back cover with a photograph in colour. The inspiration of this book sprang from a trip when the author found herself standing next to a frankincense tree in that country. 'The collector had made an incision in the trunk, causing small milky drops to start to bead.' The fruits, flowers, spices, bark, leaves and branches are just some of the natural ingredients from the plant world that are used in the creation of perfume. Roques travels from Andalusia to Somaliland by way of Bulgaria, Laos, El Salvador, Indonesia and Egypt and describes his search to find the best natural ingredients precious to perfumiers everywhere. He demonstrates how the fastidious multi-million-pound perfume industry may begin its life as a single plant harvested by producers surviving on ancestral traditions and techniques, and often risking their lives in the process as the combat the rising threat of climate change. Roques reveals the beauty and mysteries of a familiar trade and 'this book is my homage to the harvesters of the world.' 304pp, photos, line art and maps.

A charming walk through the hidden secrets of each of the 56 British species of trees by botanist and ecologist Ros Bennett. The mother and daughter team burrow into blossoms and berries, the chemistry of plants, the importance of fungi, the history of Britain's forests, why trees and forests are important before looking at identification using leaves, twigs and buds. Part three looks at species profiles of Britain's 52 mostly native trees from the conifers and broadleaf trees like the Scots pine and yew, box and crab-apple, buckthorns, elms, beech, oaks, hazels and hornbeams, wild privet, holly and elder. Daughter Nell's exquisite illustrations help identify each tree simply and confidently, and they are exquisitely detailed artworks in themselves. With tables and diagrams and families, in beautiful clear layout, the book will bring you closer to the natural world around you. 302pp, illus.

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.

Sub-titled 'A Tale of Forgotten Elm Trees, Traditional Craft and Community Spirit' the book calls on us to discover our landscapes more intimately. When renowned craftsman Robert Somerville moved to Hertfordshire he discovered the unexpected rich landscape with wildlife and elm trees, and this wooded farmland inspired him as a life-long woodworker to revive the ancient tradition of hand-raising barns. The book follows the building of Carley Barn over the course of one year. Volunteers from all walks of life joined in, inspired to learn the ancient skill of building elm barns by hand, at its own quiet pace and in the company of others, while using timber from the local woods. The opening chapter reads like a prose poem: 'Immediately, in the absence of machine noise, you can hear what is going on as well as see it. You can hear background birdsong or the soughing of the wind in the branches of trees overhead as you work... A craft is more than a hobby or a trade, it is a way of giving life to things.' 'A bond developed between people born of goodwill, without the need for an economic contract.' In the words of Kate Humble 'A joyful reminder of why nature, being outside, being together and creating beauty is so good for the soul.' 260pp, wonderful line art such as sawing a tenon's shoulder and making mortice lines using dividers plus 16 pages of colour photos and an etching.

Dubbed the 'Radical Rewilder' by The Times, Gow's book is sub-titled 'Turning My Farm into An Ark For Lost Species'. He recounts how he raised a sofa-loving wild boar piglet, transported a raging bison bull across the UK, got bitten by a Scottish wildcat, and restored the ancient white stork to the Knepp Estate with Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree. After a Shetland ewe captured young Derek's heart, he grew up to become a farmer with a passion for ancient breeds, but when he realised how many of our species were close to extinction, even on his own land, he tore up his traditional Devon farm and transformed it into a rewilding haven for beavers, water voles, lynx, wildcats, harvest mice and more. The story of his amazing work at Broadwoodwidger is highly entertaining and inspiring as tells his riotous adventures rescuing threatened species and he really knows how to get things done. 200pp, line art.