I remember – I doubt in fact I shall ever forget – my first visit to the Simon Aspinall Wildlife Education Centre at Cley; it rendered me speechless. As an American, I am perpetually in awe of the astonishing wildlife reserves I have the privilege to visit in the UK, but this one truly was like nothing I had seen before, even among all the other jewels of the British wildlife reserves.
“It is increasingly widely recognised that nature is good for us. Most of us instinctively know this to be true and the science is gradually getting to grips with how this works; the biochemistry of a visit to the local woods and its impacts on our health and well-being. Science is slowly unravelling the mechanisms by which stress hormone levels drop, beneficial neurotransmitter levels rise and our immune system gets a nudge in the right direction.”
For those who count themselves regular readers of Mark Avery’s blog, the recent uptick in new book reviews can’t have gone unnoticed. When I recently called up the site, I thought “Blimey! Is Mark doing anything other than reading these days?” However I then noticed by-lines indicating that two of the four most recent reviews were penned by none other than the noted ornithologist Ian Carter acting a as a guest reviewer.
Mark’s Sunday book review this week is rather a short one. Although to be fair, I think most everyone in Great Britain was at a wedding this weekend so it only stands to reason that he might have been a bit pressed for time.
In any case, his pick this week is “On the Moor; Science, History and Nature on a Country Walk” by Richard Carter, FCD