Raptor A Journey Through Birds - Softcover

James Macdonald Lockhart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007459890 ISBN 13: 9780007459896

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2017

Synopsis

From the merlin to the golden eagle, the goshawk to the honey buzzard, James Macdonald Lockhart’s stunning debut is a quest of beak, talon, wing, and sky. On its surface, Raptor is a journey across the British Isles in search of fifteen species of birds of prey, but as Lockhart seeks out these elusive predators, his quest becomes so much more: an incomparably elegant elegy on the beauty of the British landscape and, through the birds, a journey toward understanding an awesome power at the heart of the natural world—a power that is majestic and frightening in its strength, but also fragile.

Taking as his guide the nineteenth-century Scottish naturalist and artist William MacGillivray, Lockhart loosely follows the historical trail forged by MacGillivray as he ventured from Aberdeen to London filling his pockets with plants and writing and illustrating the canonical A History of British Birds. Linking his journey to that of his muse, Lockhart shares his own encounters with raptors ranging from the scarce osprey to the successfully reintroduced red kite, a species once protected by medieval royal statute, revealing with poetic immediacy the extraordinary behaviors of these birds and the extreme environments they call home.

Creatures both worshipped and reviled, raptors have a talon-hold on the human heart and imagination. With his book, Lockhart unravels these complicated ties in a work by turns reverent and euphoric—an interweaving of history, travel, and nature writing at its best. A hymn to wanderers, to the land and to the sky, and especially to the birds, Raptor soars.

About this title

About the Author

James Macdonald Lockhart was born in 1975. Raptor is his first book and the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction. He lives in Warwickshire, United Kingdom.

Review

“An enthralling journey. . . . This illuminating book serves as homage to a brilliant naturalist and extraordinary birds. If you loved H Is for Hawk, put this next on your reading list.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“An odyssey. . . . A nature travelogue for dipping into and savoring.” (Booklist)

“Unique and charming. . . . This rambling, discursive, often poetic narrative should be savored.” (Library Journal)

“[One of the] best books about birds and birding [of the year]. . . . The prose is so lovely that you may find yourself pondering whether this really is Lockhart’s first book.” (GrrlScientist Forbes)

“Lockhart’s soaring debut is a perfect synthesis of travel writing and natural history. The premise of Raptor is simple. . . . Yet the fruits of his labor are anything but plain as he laces vivid prose with illuminating facts to explore his own colorful experiences without shifting focus from the birds themselves. Following in the tradition of T. H. White’s The Goshawk, J. A. Baker’s The Peregrine, and, most recently, Helen Macdonald’s rapturously received H is for Hawk, Lockhart elegantly depicts these creatures of the sky and, in so doing, celebrates the natural richness of the country over which they fly.” (Anna Godfrey Financial Times)

“Lockhart’s [book] is one to sample and savour in smaller doses. They say that the fragrance of violets only persists a few seconds before the ionone shortcircuits our sensory systems. Lockhart’s prose is so finely worked and so rich in arresting images that it has something of the same effect. . . . The birds and the landscapes are all beautifully evoked, and there are many breathtaking turns of phrase. Lockhart also has a superb eye . . . and makes some beautifully nuanced discriminations.” (Jeremy Mynott, author of "Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience" Times Literary Supplement)

“Lockhart is a wonderfully modest presence. . . . He has mastered an engaging present-tense prose that brings out both the birds’ ecstatic gifts of flight but also the tragedy and triumph of their predatory lifestyle. . . . His descriptions . . . are as precise as they are inventive.” (Mark Cocker Observer)

“In flight—as Lockhart rhapsodies—nothing is more graceful than a hawk sailing the wind. The sight, for those with eyes to see, leaves the watcher, with an ounce of poetry in their soul, ‘rapt.’ Nowhere is the paradox of nature’s combined beauty and cruelty more perfectly embodied than in these winged raptors.” (John Sutherland Times)

 “Lush.” (Nigel Andrew Literary Review)

“Outstanding. . . The writing is beautifully precise. . . . For Lockhart, it becomes clear, wild birds of prey represent the living spirit of a place—of Britain. In this delicate, complex, open-ended book, full of freshness and movement, he captures that wild spirit without ever making it feel captive.” (James McConnachie Sunday Times)

“Lockhart’s prose is . . . so intimate, urgent, and visceral as to make his darkly resonant ruminations almost unfailingly gripping.” (Matthew Adams Independent)

“Lockhart’s exquisite, poetic language is a sensuous delight without sacrificing scientific accuracy. Raptor is, quite simply, a tour de force.” (Bel Mooney Daily Mail)

“The frequent appearance of Macgillivray and his works, even his meetings with local people as he walks hundreds of miles in search of birds, adds a pleasing quirkiness to an already unusual work, beautifully evoking birds and environments. The book has a lot of informative detail within, so that in reading these accounts a good deal of learning about birds and places is inevitable. Any bird of prey fan, particularly those with an interest in these spectacular birds' changing fortunes over time, will find it irresistible, and it is thoroughly recommended.” (Rob Hume, author of "Life with Birds" BirdGuides)

"Lockhart's own understanding of raptor ethology shines. His journey—intercut with passages by Victorian ornithologist William MacGillivray—flings us into skies where a hobby ‘concertinas’ the air, or a marsh harrier’s ruff gives it the air of an Elizabethan grandee." (Barbara Kiser Nature)

"This is an extremely well-made book. For a first, it’s remarkably achieved. . . . Lockhart . . . is stepping towards the distinguished company of the great modern literary books on birds of prey. . . . But Raptor also makes its own way with originality and authenticity. The writing, at times, is as good as anything we have on the subject to date." (Country Life)

"A lovely, poetic book. . . . Like any good naturalist, Lockhart relies on his ears as well as his eyes. He gets down the different calls of each bird—ttch-yup-yup, tee-yup is just right for the begging call of a young eagle—but he also gets the rhythm of each bird life and bird landscape into his prose, which is a yet more difficult achievement." (Brian Morton Herald)

"Nothing prepared me for the sustained brilliance and intensity of this book. . . . Warm, intimate, full of wonder and delight in the ways the birds revealed themselves." (Caught by the River)

"Raptor rips at its words, turning them into exquisite portraits of the utter wild, shaping soaring, obsessive beauty out of the British landscape and its imperial birds." (Philip Hoare)

“Part travelogue, part natural history, this is a masterful hymn to Britain’s raptors, in all their elegant glory. It’s no easy task to try and capture the wonder of these birds, from hen harriers swimming over land in an Orkney gale to a sparrowhawk displaying in a Warwickshire field, but Lockhart pulls it off.” (Choice Magazine (UK))

“Difficult to put down . . . [and] so enjoyable to read. Lockhart writes very well, painting beautiful verbal pictures of the wild raptors, the landscapes in which he finds them, and the people who occupy those often bleak districts, to say nothing of sometimes atrocious weather that he encounters. . . . Eminently readable and informative. I recommend it.” (Austringer (UK))

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0007459890
• ISBN 13: 9780007459896
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384