In Dr. Raye’s recently published book “The Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife; Britain and Ireland between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution” we are presented with a most remarkable catalouge of the species that were documented as having been living in these islands before modern population studies of them began.
One of the noteworthy failings in my literary life up to this point is my not having read Laurie Lee’s classic work “Cider with Rosie.” However I suspect that Mark Avery has, as clearly has the author of the first of the two books he took up for review this past week: Stephen Moss.
In a world that seems to be changing so rapidly – indeed changing in ways that often seem entirely out of control and beyond anyone’s ability to comprehend – it is reassuring to have a tangible reminder that someone, somewhere is indeed making a valiant attempt to keep at least some of the larger changes in our world under observation and publishing an annual record of what they have noticed.
As Mark has been very busy covering a number of recent developments in British wildlife conservation this past week, the Sunday book review he normally publishes is this week more of a Tuesday book review. However he more than makes amends for being a couple days late by focusing this new column on the recent publication of the British Trust for Ornithology’s State of the UK’s Birds 2017 and a particularly handy volume published a decade ago with which to compare the finding of the BTO’s new report: A Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds.