Eagle Days

The first in a new series from Langford Press, entitled Birds and People, this book summarises one man’s personal lifelong involvement with the monitoring of the Golden Eagle in Scotland. The descriptive text, at times verging on the poetic (‘a rustle of feet on the frozen sponges of moss and frosted leaf litter made me fix still’), has a quality which brings colour and life to the broader landscape in which the eagles are to be found, emphasising the author’s enthusiasm for his subject and underlining the need for such fieldwork to be undertaken. The book is well illustrated by Stuart’s own photographs of the birds being described, the wild landscape, and some of the other inhabitants – be it snow-white Mountain Hare or a stunningly coloured autumnal blackberry bush. It is a refreshing and fascinating book, which augurs well for the rest of the series.