Page 86 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04

REVIEWS O BOOKS

O TV
O RADIO
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Moorhens visit the
pools among John
Lewis-Stempel’s trees.

Ian Barstow/EyeEm/Getty

FALLING FOR BOOK
OF THE
THE TREES MONTH

Stempel records nature in his beloved wood.
The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood
By John Lewis-Stempel
Doubleday £14.99 A History of Birds Food You Can Forage
By Simon Wills ByTiffany Francis
White Owl £16.99 Bloomsbury £14.99
“How dull is life inside a building, how clear
“
a
and vibrant life is outside, in the world Examining the origin of a bird’s It was a mistake to read this
beyond the door.” This truism, for wildlife name, reputation and place in before lunch. Hunger crept up in
b
l lovers at least, comes from Stempel’s diary our culture usually ends up in a puffball risotto; thirst grew at the
e
entry for 14 July. This was a day of rich captivating mix of social history, prospect of dandelion wine. This
w natural history and art. History is not a cookery book – its focus
wildlife delights recorded in this love-letter to
his small wood – just 3.5 acres of magic. He journalist Simon Wills has is on raw ingredients and the
h
visits his 647 trees above the rank of sapling” every day for
visits his “ 647 created exactly that, giving pleasure of foraging. Francis’s
a year, passionately recording their dramas and mysteries, detailed, accessible accounts of sharp eye on contemporary tastes
from his beloved moorhens on the pool to the nuthatches 30 species, from the blackbird allows hertowander between
– the “kingfishers of the wood” – chiselling acorns. to the woodpecker. He includes a cuisines with appetising text: wild
It is beautiful, personal and gripping, perhaps because healthy mix of quotes from strawberries are ‘flavour bombs’;
Stempel is not a passive observer. He uses his trees for playwrights and poets such as dulse is ‘seaside Mexicana’. Her
forage, fencing and firewood and occasionally shoots Wordsworth and Shakespeare, writing is strongest when she
those living among them, declaring that his senses and archival illustrations to pore speaks from experience: beware
sharpen in hunter mode. The work is freckled with over and savour – including a the stainingjuice from walnut
poetryfrom greats such as John Clare, but its strength is 13th-century depiction of a shells; gather sweet chestnuts
in Stempel’s fierce emotional connection to nature. barnacle goose ‘tree’. ‘straight from the hedgehog’.
Fergus Collins Editor, BBCCountryfile Ed Drewitt Naturalist DerekNiemann Wildlife writer
86 BBC Wildlife April 2018