Raptor: A Journey Through Birds

(Paperback)

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Winner of The Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011 and the Authors' Foundation Roger Deakin Award in 2011

A stunning debut in the tradition of Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald
Of all the birds of the British Isles, the raptor reigns supreme, sparking the imagination like no other. In this magnificent hymn to these beautiful animals, James Macdonald Lockhart explores all fifteen breeding birds of prey on these shores from the hen harrier swimming over the land in the dregs of a May gale on Orkney, to the ghostly sparrowhawk displaying in the fields around his home in Warwickshire. This is a book that will change how we think of our own skies.

Reviews

Lockhart's prose is so intimate, urgent, and visceral as to make his darkly resonant ruminations almost unfailingly gripping Independent

A hymn in praise of living, soaring, terrifying grandeur his exquisite, poetic language is a sensuous delight without sacrificing scientific accuracy A tour de force Daily Mail

Lockhart puts the rapture back in the raptor. 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. A true heir to J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, and T.H. White's The Goshawk' Philip Hoare

In Lockharts soaring debut he laces vivid prose with illuminating facts He elegantly depicts these creatures of the sky and, in doing so, celebrates the natural richness of the country over which they fly Financial Times

If you publish a book on birds of prey in the tumultuous wake of Helen MacDonalds prizewinning H is for Hawk, you expect comparisons. James MacDonald Lockhart can relax. His book is outstanding 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 Sunday Times

Lockhart 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 Observer

Lockhart is stepping towards the distinguished company of the great modern literary books on birds of prey The writing, at times, is as good as anything we have on the subject to date Country Life

His understanding of raptor ethology shines Nature

Any bird of prey fan will find it irresistible thoroughly recommended BirdGuides

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

Author Bio

James Macdonald Lockhart is an associate editor of, and regular contributor to, Archipelago Magazine, and a literary agent at Antony Harwood Limited.