Description

From one of our greatest nature writers: how swifts act as a window into the unity of the living world.

Mark Cocker spends a single midsummer day tracing the flight of swifts – birds that connect continents, climates and species. What begins as a quiet act of observation expands into an awe-inspiring reflection on the interdependence of life on Earth.

Cocker moves from the skies above Britain to the deep ocean currents, solar energy and ecosystems that sustain all living things. This is nature writing of rare insight, beauty and vision – a hymn to the marvel of movement and connection that binds our planet together.

‘A jewel of a book’ Caroline Lucas

‘A beautiful, brilliant, mind-stretching and soul-flying book. Genius.’ Horatio Clare

Publisher Review

Lyrical and startling by turn, he reveals the extraordinary in the apparently ordinary… A jewel of a book — Caroline Lucas MP Not just a glorious celebration of swifts but of their place amid the panoply of life on Earth… Cocker is one of our greatest living naturalists… He brings to this vast subject a scientist’s rigour and a poet’s expansive vision — Philip Marsden * Spectator * A beautiful, brilliant, mind-stretching and soul-flying book. Genius — Horatio Clare, author of A Single Swallow His grandest effort yet. Told as a series of reflections that fly through his mind in the course of a single day watching swifts from his garden in Norfolk, he ranges across topics as widely as a swift ranges across the sky… Magnificent * Financial Times * A rich and elegant exploration that takes us to unexpected places. With the swift as our lift, we leave the garden on an extraordinary tour that takes in the moon, amongst many other wonderful destinations — Tristan Gooley, author of How to Read a Tree