Book review – natural history
Fluttering to extinction: the tragedy of Britain’s butterflies
In 1979, despite the best efforts of scientists for more than a century, a butterfly called the British Large Blue…
![An English oak in a misty meadow at dawn [Getty]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/oak_tree.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Why the British love the oak tree
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been planting up much of the pasture on our small Cornish farm with…
Will all whales soon be extinct?
Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, is quick to tell us he’s not…
The most bizarre museum heist ever
They don’t look like a natural pair. First there’s the author, Kirk Wallace Johnson, a hero of America’s war in…
Animals make us human
There was a time when biologists so scorned the attribution of human qualities to other animals that anthropomorphism was seen…
Across the river... and into the trees
Water accounts for 70 per cent of your planet, and 60 per cent of your body. Yet when do you…
What dogs are really up to
Before I read this book, I thought I knew what a dog was. It barks, it wags its tail, it…
Which came first — the bowerbird or the egg?
What is it about birds? They are the wild creatures we see most often, their doings and calls a daily…
Tracking the great Siberian tiger
Of all charismatic animals, tigers are surely the most filmed, televised, documented, noisily cherished and, paradoxically, the most persecuted on…
Green is the colour of happiness
According to this wonderfully thought-provoking book, human attachment to plants was much more evident in the 19th century than it…
There is good in every tree, says Thomas Pakenham — even the sycamore
I have never written much about the one-acre shaw of native trees I planted in 1994, even though it is…
The current scarcity of herring may itself be a red herring
Fish stories come in two varieties: the micro-version of a hundred riverside bars, blokeish boastings of rod-and-line tussles with individual…
We all love butterflies — so why are we wiping them out?
Last month, at Edinburgh School of Art, I was interested to come across a student who’d chosen Marlowe’s Dr Faustus…
How 18th-century gardeners ordered their plants after a great storm, a terrible drought and ‘a little ice age’
I hesitate ever to criticise an author for the inappropriateness of a book’s title, since it’s more likely the fault…
Fizmer, feetings, flosh, blinter - enjoy these words and forget them immediately, advises Adam Nicolson
It is not only archaic or dialect terms in natural history we’re now missing in everyday speech, says Adam Nicolson. Soon children won’t even know what a dandelion is
From water-dwelling sponges to face-eating hyenas: the whole of life is in this book
‘The meaning of life’, announces Simon Barnes in the opening pages of his new book, ‘is life, and the purpose…
First ash dieback, then the world's scariest beetle
The ash tree may lack the solidity of oak, the magnificence of beech or the ancient mystique of yew. In…
Bees make magic: an inspirational case for biodiversity
The importance of biodiversity, a handy concept that embraces diversity of eco-systems, species, genes and molecules, has been promoted for…
What's eating London's songbirds?
This book, with its absurdly uninformative photographs, dismal charts and smattering of charmless drawings, looks like a report. A pity,…
Falling in love with birds of prey
Is it the feathers that do the trick? The severely truculent expressions on their faces? Or is it their ancient…
Warning: the beautiful trees in this book may very soon be extinct
John Evelyn (1620–1706) was not only a diarist. He was one of the most learned men of his time: traveller,…
Toowit-towoo! At long last, a Collins book on owls
Owls have more associations for us than perhaps any other family of birds, suggested Jeremy Mynott in Birdscapes, so it…
The most important gardening book of the year
I’ll own up at once. Tim Richardson and Andrew Lawson, the author and photographer of The New English Garden (Frances…
Migration Hotspots, by Tim Harris - review
Consider for a moment the plight of the willow warbler. Russian birds of this species fly between eastern Siberia and…
