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This page lists books published by Saraband in the Encounters In The Wild series. The books are ordered by publication date with the most recent publications at the top of the page.

"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."

Saraband pages

Other bird related books

Dragonflies

Skylark

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2016

"Watch this bird poised on a tussock, awaiting the signal from the wind, a thumbs up, an urging gust. Lift-off is gently inclined and silent. The transformations from gentle incline to vertical columnar flight, and from silence to song, coincide within a few airborne seconds, a few feet of ascent. The song is full-throated from the first note, as self-confident as the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth or Armstrong’s West End Blues. There is no preamble, no subtle dropped hint of the glories to come. The glories start with the downbeat."

Badger

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2016

"Suddenly the boar’s face was back, peering up from almost ground level beneath the lowest sweep of the spruce branches. Almost at once, the sow was right beside him. Then came the cubs. For perhaps ten seconds, no more, all four faces gleamed garishly out of the forest at me. They looked like nothing so much as characters in a puppet theatre and an absurd image came into my head of the puppet master crouched behind them, dangling two puppet masks on strings from each hand. In all my badger encounters, nothing has charmed me so utterly as those ten seconds."

Swan

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2015

"The 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."

Hare

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2015

"The moon climbed high above the trees beyond the far side of the field, contriving a night of raw, primitive beauty out of the still-lingering wisps of mist, the pale, tumbling curves of field, the parallel inked-in blue-black curves of the hedges, the quiet and surprisingly pale shades of the distant firth. Tawny owls stabbed at the darkness with sharp, two-syllable shrieks. Then there was a hare, far down the field. It ran easily out into the moonlight from the hedge on the far side and at once it was partnered in dance by its own giant shadow."

Barn Owl

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2014

"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."

Fox

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2014

"There was a face looking at me. It was the colour of autumn and snow. Its eyes were smouldery gold. Its ears were tall and wide for the size of the face. The fur on its narrow forehead and between its ears stood on end, but lay sleekly aslant on its cheeks, and that was the autumn of the face. From the black tip of the nose, a band of bright white travelled back the full length of the face, and that was the snow of the face. It was the face of a fox, a vixen I guessed, alluringly beautiful, entrancingly wild."