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This page lists books that collect together articles originally published in Journals, newspapers and magazines.

The books are arranged by publication date with the most recent at the top.

From Field And Fen

Mike Toms

Crow Meadow Press

2015

"Drawn from a decade of the ‘In the Countryside’ columns published in the Eastern Daily Press, From Field and Fen explores our relationship with place and the countryside. The book is the result of looking; of spending time within a few small patches of landscape and of becoming attuned to the shifts and fluxes that would otherwise have been missed. It is a book about feeling and understanding, that moves with the seasons and responds to the external pressures that are an inevitable consequence of the increasing demands on our land."

Tales from Concrete Jungles: Urban Birding Around the World

David Lindo

2015

"Since 2006, a long-running series of articles has appeared in Birdwatching magazine, showcasing David visiting a wide variety of cities in Britain and Europe and the birds he has encountered on these short city breaks. These articles are collected here for the first time; most of them are expanded with new material, but a few never before published are also featured. They cover visits to many cities throughout the world and these cities are surprisingly different, with striking variations even between cities in Britain. Each urban centre has its own personality and this is reflected in the people that David meets and the birds that he sees."

Tweet of the Day: A Year of Britain's Birds from the Acclaimed Radio 4 Series

Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss

Saltyard Books

2014

"Based on the scripts of BBC Radio 4's beloved year-long series, and distilling two lifetimes' knowledge, insight and enthusiasm into these pages, Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss take you month by month through the year, and the changing lives of our favourite birds. From peregrines swapping sea-cliffs for skyscrapers to swifts spending almost their entire lives on the wing; from charms of goldfinches to murmurations of starlings; from ptarmigans thriving in the Highland snow to the bright green parakeets thronging London's parks; this book is packed full of extraordinary insights and memorable facts."

Nature Journal

L.J. Davenport

2013

"Nature Journal is an innovative presentation of the best columns and photographs from L. J. Davenport's popular column in Alabama Heritage magazine. Readers of the magazine have come to relish his artful and often witty descriptions of common species encountered in the Alabama outdoors. But Nature Journal is designed to be much more than a mere collection of entertaining essays; it is also an educational tool – a means of instructing and encouraging readers in the art of keeping a nature journal for themselves. Each of the 25 chapters is a self-contained lesson in close observation of species morphology, behavior, and habitat; research in the literature; nondestructive capture of the subject by photography or drawing; and written description of the total observed natural phenomenon. At the end of each account, stimulating questions and gentle directives guide the reader into making his or her own observations and recordings."

Life on the Wing: A Bird Chronicle from the Pages of The Times

Derwent May

2012

"Derwent May is one of the country s leading experts on nature and the countryside and, for many years, his Feather Reports have appeared regularly in the pages of The Times. In those columns collected in this evocative and charming volume May captures the rich and changing world of British bird life throughout the calendar year. In the tradition of Gilbert White and W. H. Hudson, May writes with a freshness of observation and sensitivity that makes On The Wing simply captivating, especially when combined with the superlative nature drawings of illustrator Peter Brown. This is a book that is sure to be treasured by all nature lovers."

The Hedgerows Heaped with May: The Telegraph Book of the Countryside

Editor: Stephen Moss

2012

"An exploration of everything the countryside means to us, from a hundred years of the Telegraph's archive. The Telegraph is, as its former editor Max Hastings identified, more than any other national broadsheet the newspaper of the countryside, which over the years has been written about in its pages by such distinguished writers as J.H.B. Peel, John Betjeman and W.F. Deedes, alongside eminent modern naturalists like Richard Mabey and even unlikely proponents of the rural life like Boris Johnson. This anthology is no bland celebration of bucolic idyll, but rather an exploration of everything that the countryside represents to the British. For some it means the reintroduction of long-lost wildlife such as the red kite, or ancient crafts like thatching. For others it means jouncing along a green lane in a four-wheel-drive Range Rover. To the Prince of Wales, his new town of Poundbury is the countryside while subjects as diverse as crop circles, second homes, Mad Cow Disease and polytunnels are all flashpoints in the modern debate about what, and who, the countryside is for. Hugely varied, by turns funny and provocative, this is an essential exploration of a central aspect of our national identity."

Tails of Birding: Random Essays Inspired by Birds and Birdwatching

Chris Petrak

2011

"Chris Petrak has been entertaining and informing readers in a weekly column on birds and birding for over ten years. "Tails of Birding" gathers fifty-two engaging essays from this popular Vermont columnist. The essays interweave the experiences of watching birds and the adventures of finding birds with their life histories - their biology, environment, survival challenges, and folk history. The essays are variously informative, entertaining, narrative, poignant, humorous, poetic, and reflective."

Birdman Abroad

Stuart Winter

2011

"Stuart Winter's "Tales of a Tabloid Twitcher" earned many plaudits in 2010, as the birder journalist who brought the subjects of birdwatching and conservation to millions of red-top readers over a period of more than a decade shared some of his most captivating 'scoops'. This second installment of tales follows a similar format and covers stories from around the world. Each of the 20 or so chapters covers a range of tales and issues at a rapid pace, and is accompanied by a series of amusing line drawings. Once again there are stories of sin and scandal mixed with serious messages about bird conservation and the environment. Thanks to Stuart's role as news editor on a national newspaper the title is guaranteed to be heavily promoted to a wide audience of interested readers of his "Birdman" column among "The Sunday Express'" weekly readership of 600,000 people, as well as in the birding and wildlife magazines for which he regularly contributes."

Tales of a Tabloid Twitcher

Stuart Winter

2010

"It may come as a surprise to some people, but tabloid newspaper coverage of the ornithological world does actually extend beyond cheap innuendos about tits and shags. For this we can thank one journalist more than any other - Stuart Winter. A birder since childhood, he has maintained a constant presence in the world of the tabloid news since the mid-1990s, bringing innumerable stories about birds and birdwatchers to the masses in the process. This enthralling book offers a window into the sometimes shady worlds of tabloid journalism and birdwatching. In the process it explores the full stories behind the very best scoops. You may think that birdwatching would be a rather refined hobby, but you would be very wrong indeed. There are tales of obsession - travelling the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of rarities; tragedy - risking life and limb in the line of duty; celebrity - both human and avian, from Jeremy Clarkson and David Attenborough to 'Sammy the Stilt'; crime - from felony to rivalries that turned nasty; and scandal - just what is the most debauched use of a bird hide?"

A Brush With Nature: 25 years of personal reflections on nature

Richard Mabey

2010

"Described as ‘Britain's greatest living nature writer', Richard Mabey has revealed his passion for the natural world in eloquent stories for BBC Wildlife Magazine. This definitive collection brings together his favourite pieces and presents a fascinating and inspiring view of the changing natural landscape in which we live. With marvellously observed detail, Mabey recalls following a barn owl he'd encountered while walking near his home in Norfolk, and talks of studying lichens through the lens of a Victorian microscope. Alongside tales of ants and hornets, swifts and pink-footed geese, we read about the hustle and bustle of his village in the heat of the summer, and his musings on the significance of Constable's The Cornfield. Mabey's fascination lies in the way that we live and work within the nature that surrounds us. Peppered throughout with references to the heritage of nature writing, and great writers from Richard Jefferies and John Clare to Roger Deakin and Robert MacFarlane, A Brush With Nature is part memoir, part nature journal, part social history, giving us a unique insight into a nature lover's reflections over a quarter of a century."

The Guardian Book of the Countryside

Editor: Ruth Petrie, Martin Wainwright

2008

From the spread of the railways and flight to the cities in the early 19th century, through to floods and global warming in the 21st century, this is a timely reminder of just how much the British countryside has endured over the last 200 years. A selection of pieces from the Guardian that reflect the changing face of rural Britain over the past 200 years. Includes subjects as varied as windfarms to city farms, mass trespasses and the rise of the rambler through to the creation of English vineyards and the return of the red kite. This poignant collection shows how the countryside adapts to everything we throw at it, yet still remains our most valuable and beautiful resource.

A Gleaming Landscape: A Hundred Years of the Guardian's Country Diary

Editor: Martin Wainwright

2008

"In 2006, the Guardian's much-loved Country Diary column is a hundred years old, and to commemorate the anniversary Martin Wainwright has compiled a collection of the best of a century's writing. Where Harry Griffin's A Lifetime of Mountains, Aurum's first and extremely successful collaboration with Guardian Books, was essentially a collection of writing about the Lake District, this new book covers the landscape of the whole of the United Kingdom, from Wales to Northern Ireland, Scotland to Norfolk. Also the Country Diary column has consistently attracted some of Britain's best writers on natural history and the countryside: Jim Perrin the mountaineering writer, whose biography of Don Whillans won the Boardman-Tasker Award, writes the dispatches from Snowdonia; Mark Cocker, author of the bestselling Birds Britannica, writes the Country Diary from Norfolk. There are also diaries written by a leading Suffragette, one of Rupert Brooke's mistresses, and even one of the Guardian's printers! And Martin Wainwright (who also edited A Lifetime of Mountains) has found diaries to reflect the changing of the countryside over a hundred years: from the prevalence of owls in First World War trenches full of vermin to the plant surveys of Second World War bombsites."

A Tiger in the Sand: Selected Writings on Nature

Mark Cocker

2006

"In seven works of non-fiction, especially in Birders and the universally acclaimed Birds Britannica, Mark Cocker has established himself as one of the foremost writers on nature and wilderness. In his most lyrical work to date, he has drawn together the best of his writing on wildlife, mainly taken from columns for the Guardian and Guardian Weekly. These carefully distilled articles, over a hundred in all, illustrate some of his most enduring themes over the last twenty years - the magical dynamism of birds, as well as the subtle beauty, vast skies and wildlife riches of the Norfolk landscape. In its celebration of the natural world, the hugely varied selection also demonstrates a concern to champion the despised and neglected - rats, gulls, crows (the 'Black Beasts' of his first section) - as much as it explores some of the most charismatic creatures on Earth - penguins, whales, lions and elephants. Cocker is equally good at evoking the commonplace mysteries of garden blackbirds and thrush's song, as he is the exotic otherness of mountain gorillas or the one-horned rhinoceros. With its attention to detail, especially the sharpness of perception and the precise use of language, the writing in A Tiger in the Sand shows qualities more usually associated with poetry than with prose."

This Birding Life: The Best of the Guardian's Birdwatch

Stephen Moss

Aurum Press

2006

"Moss's 'Birdwatch' column has over the years included nostalgic reminiscences on birdwatching as a child, accounts of birding expeditions to places as farflung as St Kilda and even Antarctica, of birding on his honeymoon in the Gambia, the birds on his garden feeder and, recently, introducing his toddler son to a first awareness of birds. Now, the best of these 'Birdwatch' columns are collected into a beautiful miniature hardback, tastefully designed and illustrated with line drawings, and together they build into a touching and fascinating chronicle of how one person's hobby has endured and evolved and in turn enriched a whole life"

Our Life with Birds

John L. Tveten and Gloria Tveten

2004

"For nearly a quarter of a century, John and Gloria Tveten wrote a weekly column, called "Nature Trails," for the Houston Chronicle. Wide ranging in both subject matter and geography, their writings reflected a rewarding life of travel, study, and observation in nature, including many memorable encounters with birds. Through the Tvetens' engaging accounts, readers travel vicariously to canoe a Minnesota lake alongside common loons, experience the rare thrill of sighting a snowy owl on a boat dock in Louisiana, count a record number of birds on the Texas coast, or spot tropical tanagers in a Brazilian rainforest. Now gathered together in Our Life with Birds, these writings let us sit back and enjoy the best of John and Gloria Tveten as they tell about the fun of listing, banding, and other games birders play; about the behavior, variety, and beauty of birds; about the imperiled as well as the favored species; and about the simple joy to be had in living with birds."

In the Countryside

Moss Taylor

Wren Publishing

2003

"This small book is a compilation of 100 of the author's columns that originally appeared in the Eastern Daily Press between the years 1999 and 2001. The topics cover the Norfolk countryside during the four seasons and a selection of the author's foreign trips. It is illustrated with 29 colour photographs taken by Moss at home and abroad."

City Birding: True Tales of Birds and Birdwatching in Unexpected Places

Editor: Mark Allison

Stackpole Books

2003

"The waterways of New York-New Jersey, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the French Quarter of New Orleans -- all unlikely spots for bird-watching. For the careful observer, however, these urban locations and others like them can be settings for memorable birding experiences. In this unique book, some of the country's best-known birders observe birds in places where thriving bird life comes as a surprise. Funny, informative, and thought-provoking, the true stories collected here demonstrate the amazing adaptability of birds, which sometimes seem to thrive in almost any setting humans create: city parks, busy marinas, cemeteries, sewage lagoons. They also illustrate the vulnerability of the natural world in an increasingly man-made environment, and show how the excitement of bird-watching can exist in the most unexpected places."

Golden Wings and Other Stories about Birders and Birding

Pete Dunne

University of Texas Press

2003

"This book collects forty-one of Dunne's recent essays, drawn from his columns in "Living Bird", "Wild Bird News", the "New Jersey Sunday" section of the "New York Times", "Birder's World", and other publications. Written with his signature wit and insight, they cover everything from a moment of awed communion with a Wandering Albatross ("the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen") to Dunne's imagined "perfect bird" ("The Perfect Bird is the size of a turkey, has the wingspan of an eagle, the legs of a crane, the feet of a moorhen, and the talons of a great horned owl. It eats kudzu, surplus zucchini, feral cats, and has been known to predate upon homeowners who fire up their lawn mowers before 7:00 A.M. on the weekend."). The title essay pays whimsical, yet heartfelt tribute to Dunne's mentor, the late birding legend Roger Tory Peterson."

Naturally . . . South Texas: Nature Notes from the Coastal Bend

Roland H. Wauer

University of Texas Press

2001

"The Golden Crescent of South Texas, a fifteen-county region along and inland from the middle Gulf Coast, is often called 'the Crossroads' because of its natural diversity. Located in the heart of the Gulf Coast Prairie and Marshes, the area also encompasses the trailing edges of the South Texas Plains, Post Oak Savannah, and Blackland Prairie. This confluence of ecological zones makes it a wonderful place for birding and for observing the changing face of nature, especially during seasonal transitions. In this book, Ro Wauer describes a typical year in the natural life of South Texas. Using selected entries from his weekly column in the "Victoria Advocate" newspaper, he discusses numerous topics for each month, from the first appearance of butterflies in January, to alligators making a comeback in July, to the Christmas bird count in December.His observations are filled with intriguing natural history lore, from what sounds mockingbirds will imitate (almost any noise in their neighbourhood) to how armadillos swim (by inflating themselves to increase their buoyancy)."

Feather Reports: A Chronicle of Bird Life from the Pages of The Times

Derwent May

Robson Books

1999

"Derwent May charts the ups and downs, the high and the lows of birdlife in Britain. The book covers Britain's most common birds, plus some of the more exotic species found in wilder habitats."

Bird News: Vagrants and Visitors on a Peculiar Island

E. Vernon Laux

1999

"With the enthusiasm of the devotee, columnist E. Vernon Laux documents a year in the life of the Martha's Vineyard bird population and provides a bird's-eye view of the seasons on New England's most celebrated island. He reports on the characters that watch and the creatures that are watched in the skies and waters, beaches and mudflats, fields and forests of the Vineyard. Laux also lovingly describes his own discovery: the chickmouse, a hybrid of two common species. In his sometimes dramatic, sometimes serene corner of the world, Laux explores complex relationships through acute observation and enthusiastic attention."

Small-headed Flycatcher. Seen Yesterday. He Didn't Leave His Name and other stories

Pete Dunne

University of Texas Press

1998

"This book brings together thirty-two vintage essays that Dunne originally wrote for publications such as "American Birds", "Bird Watcher's Digest", "Birder's World", "Birding", "Living Bird", the New Jersey edition of the "Sunday New York Times", "WildBird", and "Wild Bird News". Encounters with birds rare and common is their shared theme, through which Dunne weaves stories of his family and friends, reflections on the cycles of nature, and portraits of unforgettable birders whose paths have crossed his, ranging from Roger Tory Peterson to a life-battered friend who finds solace in birding. A cliff-hanger story of the bird that got away gives this book its title."

More Tales of a Low-Rent Birder

Pete Dunne

Foreword: Kenn Kaufman

University of Texas Press

1994

"More Tales of a Low-Rent Birder brings together twenty-five recent essays that originally appeared in major birding publications. In these pieces, Pete Dunne ranges from wildly humorous to sadly elegiac, as he describes everything from the "field plumage" of the dedicated birder to the lingering death of an accidentally injured golden plover. Running like a thread through all the essays is Dunne's love and respect for the birds he watches, his concern over human threats to their survival, and his tolerance, even affection, for the human "odd birds" that birding attracts. Truly, these essays offer something for everyone interested in birds and the natural habitats our species share."

Tales of a Low-Rent Birder

Pete Dunne

Foreword: Roger Tory Peterson

University of Texas Press

1994

"Tales of a Low-Rent Birder is a collection of nineteen essays and sketches written between 1977 and 1985. It was originally published in 1986."

Iowa Birdlife

Gladys Black

University of Iowa Press

1992

A Notebook of Birds 1907-1980: Original notes from British Birds

Jim Flegg

MacMillan

1981

"Every month since June 1907 the journal British Birds has published a correspondence column where birdwatchers have recorded the interesting and sometimes amusing behaviour of an enormous range of bird species. Jim Flegg, well known to television and radio addicts, has studied all these Notes and selected the most striking and unusual for this book, with a commentary that puts them into perspective for the modern birdwatcher.

Birds: Scientific American

Editor: Barry W. Wilson

1980

A collection of 25 articles published in Scientific American between 1948 and 1979.

The Countryman: Bird Book

Editor: Bruce and Margaret Campbell

David & Charles

1974

A 200 page collection of essays, articles, notes, photographs and illustrations mostly taken from The Countryman magazine.

Bush Quest

Robin Hill

Lansdowne Press

1968?

A collection of essays and stories many of which originally appeared in the Melbourne Age.

Bird Haunts And Nature Memories

T.A. Coward

Frederick Warne & Co

1922

From the preface:

The titles and subject-matter of many of the chapters in this miscellany originally appeared in the Manchester Guardian, Scotsman, Daily Dispatch, and Westminster Review. Through the courtesy of the proprietors and editors I am able to issue them in their present form. In every case, however, the articles have been revised, and in most recast and extended. The Preservation of our Fauna was the subject of an address, delivered as President, before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. The illustrations, except that of the Dandy, for which I am indebted to Messrs. Nicholson and Gartner of Carlisle, are the work of personal friends, who have taken considerable trouble to supply the subjects I desired. The name of each photographer appears in the list of illustrations. I am especially indebted to Mr. Archibald Thorburn, and to Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., who hold the copyright, for permission to reproduce the original drawing of the Noctule. Of all pictures I know, this is the best representation of this bat.