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Publisher: Troubador, Leicestershire

Publication Year: 2014

Binding: Softback

Page Count: 374

ISBN Number: 978-1-78306-409-0

Price: £ 12.99

Birds of a Feather: Seasonal Changes on Both Sides of the Atlantic

Having experienced seasonal change and migration on both sides of the pond I was eager to get my hands on a copy of this engaging book and I have to say that I’m very much glad that I did.
Birds of a Feather is a poetic and frequently evocative account of the yearly cycle on either side of the Atlantic. Colin Rees, a long-serving and dedicated conservationist, provides lyrical and reflective observations of seasonal change as it ebbs and flows around his Maryland home on the Chesapeake Bay. Derek Thomas, an academic, lifelong naturalist and former chairman of the Wildlife Trusts in Wales echoes Colin’s new world narrative with his own experience of wonder as the first spring migrants arrive and the seasons unfold across the rocky Gower peninsula where he lives in South Wales.

These vivid monthly records of spring flowers, the dawn chorus, fall warblers and the first snow; are also full of insights into the impact that our changing world and climate is having on these natural phenomena. The reader is carried up to dramatic Welsh cliff top vistas replete with Choughs and Stonechats, and then led through marshes buzzing with the harsh song of Red-winged Blackbirds as Ospreys raise their young on the American east coast.

These transatlantic friends document the passing seasons in all their exuberance. Poignant prose illuminates the soul with the honest joys of the small things in life; the beautiful song of the Carolina Wren and the first Robin nest of the year amongst many others; but the seriousness of our impact upon the natural world is never lost amid the personal delight in natural rhythms that bring with them a breath-taking tide of migration through our lives each year. This wonderfully illustrated title will appeal to those deeply rooted in the natural world as well as ornithologists and birders from both continents.

Book reviewed by Justin Walker

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