BOOK REVIEW: The Largest Avian Radiation: The Evolution of Perching Birds, or the Order Passeriformes. Edited by Jon Fjeldså, Les Christidis and Per G.P. Ericson.

Reviewed by Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne

Fjeldså, J., Christidis, L. & Ericson, P.G.P. Eds. (2020). The Largest Avian Radiation: The Evolution of Perching Birds, or the Order Passeriformes. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Pages 445.

 

This book is an excellent example of how to make deep science less intimidating. I had wondered how Lynx Edicions that had carved a niche for being at the interface between hard science and popular natural history would tackle a subject that would appear to most people to be dense and impenetrable. Superb design and excellent writing and editing have resulted in a book which not only keen birders but others interested in topics such as speciation and biogeography would find interesting.

 

The first thing that strikes you about the book is the design. Chapters and section headings are announced in capital letters in bright colours. There is generous use of delightful bird illustrations (by the multi-talented Jon Fjeldså, the lead editor) which although accurate have a lightness that leans towards arty than illustrative. All of this creates the right ‘mood music’ for anyone who may have been otherwise intimidated by the prospect of delving into the details of molecular phylogenetics.

 

Over the years, many books, in particular those in the excellent Helm Family Monograph series have included introductory sections or chapters explaining molecular phylogenetics. Many books on birders’ bookshelves also contain the branching diagrams or phylogenetic trees arising from genetic studies. Furthermore, attendees of popular talks at the more serious end of ornithology are also used to discussions on molecular phylogenetics. Technical knowledge in the world of birding has come a long way in the last few decades and I suspect most birders will be comfortable with the vast majority of the text in this book. However, I would caution this is not a book for everyone with an interest in birds. You need to be someone who is already following with interest, the science behind splits and lumps at species level to follow the discussions in this book although the book is focussed at the higher taxonomic levels of families.

 

The book is in three sections. Most people may find that this book can be approached by reading ‘Section 1 Background’ followed by ‘Section 3. Thematic chapters’.  At the core of the book is ‘Section 2. Classification and families of passerine birds’ (pages 45- 318). Section 2 begins with an ‘An Updated Classification of Passerine Birds’ which discusses past attempts to classify the passerines and concludes with a new family tree that shows various higher taxonomic levels including suborders, infraorders, parvorders, superfamilies, subfamilies and families. The design is excellent and uses indentation, boldfacing and colours to help with easy and comfortable visual navigation. Chapters 6 to 14 discuss each family of passerines. The families are grouped in the chapters under higher taxonomic groupings. For example, chapter 8 is titled the ‘Cohort Corvoides: the crow like passerines’. Whether you have a special interest in a family, or doing some background reading in anticipation of seeing new families on a forthcoming birding trip or one of the growing band of birders who are trying to see every bird family, these chapters will be of absorbing interest, provided you are not fazed by a sciencey text. If the presence of bracketed citations and the phylogenetic diagrams are ignored, almost all of the text is readable to a keen birder of the sort who would be subscribing to a journal like ‘British Birds’. Occasionally a family account may have extensive discussion on revisions based on molecular phylogenetics; examples include the sunbirds and tanagers.  Admittedly, these can be heavy reading.

 

Although this is a book on passerine birds, the first four chapters will be useful reading to anyone with an interest in any animal groups, especially vertebrates. There is useful background information here on systematics and taxonomy and forces behind evolutionary change. We also learn of the important role of New Guinea as a staging post for the passerines to spread across the world from an origin in the Southern Hemisphere. ‘Section 3. Thematic chapters’ (pages 319 to 369) and the first of two appendices (on a short earth history) also have useful background information. Chapter 15 on ‘The worldwide variation in biodiversity: some central questions and concepts’ and chapter 16 on ‘How new species evolve’ with their chapter headings, give a clear sign on the many interesting topics that are covered in these chapters. Having lived on islands, discussions on speciation models are of particular interest to me. But even a large continent like Africa has over geological time functioned as a patchwork of ecologically isolated areas or islands which has given rise to a number of endemic animals which are confined to limited areas. Island geography or more generally geographical isolation is not the only factor in speciation and chapter 16 also discusses factors such as song in the speciation process. One thing I would have liked to have seen included is a Geological Time Scale. I printed one off the internet to make it easier for me to follow some of the time scales discussed in various chapters.

 

The references in the end sections are extensive (pages 397 to 432) and reinforce the point that this book is a synthesis of the work of over a thousand papers published on passerine molecular phylogenetics. But as the editors note, this is only a stock take of work done so far and further advances will arise from whole genome sequencing. The lack of a good fossil record and other issues in constructing a molecular phylogeny means that the exact placement of some avian families is still uncertain. An example being the Kinglets or Crests (family Regulidae). This is a family I am familiar with as its members include the Goldcrest, a bird I encounter in parks with conifers in London. As with many family accounts, there is an evocative introduction to the family followed by the nitty gritty of molecular phylogenetics. In this case the surprising conclusion is that the placement of the family is still unresolved. All birders have their favourite bird families and will find it easy to be absorbed by the family accounts of their favourite families. 

 

On the whole it is a remarkable book for its contribution of deep science and insights made accessible to serious birders through good writing and design. I suspect no other group of biological organisms has a cutting edge science book of this genre devoted to it that is aimed at a popular market. The book also casts a light on birders as being a sociological phenomenon. Birders are an economically very valuable group of hobbyists who number in the several hundred thousand and are a subset of a few million birdwatchers world-wide. They generate millions of dollars in revenue for industry sectors from tourism to publishing. But interestingly, probably no other special interest group of this number of adherents follows the outcomes of cutting edge science with such keen interest.

Managing Wildlife Habitat: Free Lectures, Feb-March 2020, Ecology & Conservation Studies Society

Managing Wildlife Habitat

Free Lectures, The Lady Lisa Sainsbury Lecture Theatre, Jodrell Building, Kew Gardens

18:00 to 19:30 on February 13th, 27th and March 12th 2020

Ecology & Conservation Studies Society with Royal Botanic Garden Kew

Download details as a pdf

Recently, we have come to see areas protected for wildlife as small and isolated, wasting away in unfriendly surrounds of intensively-managed land. In those isolated areas, much of our management of land harked back to traditional practices. When we coppice woodlands, mow meadows and harvest reeds, we hope that returning to the tradition would make places better by recovering the diversity that had been lost in neglect or in modern, intensive land management. This use of traditional practices included the grazing of heathlands, but rewilding harks much further back to prehistoric times. Then, humans were hunter-gatherers and the natural landscape was shaped by large grazing animals, their numbers controlled by their food and by large predators. As just one of those predators, human involvement was minimal.

In a large enough area, we can try to mimic those prehistoric landscapes by allowing large grazing animals, or beavers, to interact naturally with their habitat. Leaving aside rewilding, large areas of land may also be needed simply because the target species require large areas of habitat, just as bitterns and marsh harriers need large reedbeds. To overcome the limitations of size, we need bigger areas, or to join them up. So, in his review, "Making Space for Nature", John Lawton included the existing aim to make places "better", but added "more, bigger and joined". As part of the joining up of nature sites, John went also for reducing the pressures on wildlife by improving the wider countryside.

Countryside Stewardship schemes aim to do just that, but there is international controversy over whether it's better to do this, and spread action for wildlife habitat widely across the map (land sharing) or to put intensive biological conservation effort into a small amount of priority land, allowing intensive agriculture across the rest of the landscape (land sparing). Recent work suggests that the land sparing may be the best strategy, thus questioning the recent UK approach. If we return the emphasis to land sparing, we need actions that will make the best of our existing wildlife sites.

These three lectures explore some of these issues of land use and management for biological conservation.

February 13th Conservation trade-offs: reconciling food production, wild spaces and farmland wildlife. Tom Finch, Conservation Scientist at RSPB.

February 27th Bringing Beaver Back: The return of beaver to SE England. Chloë Sadler, Head of Wilder Landscapes, Kent Wildlife Trust.

March 12th. Making Space for Nature: past, present and future. Sir John Lawton.

These lectures have been organised by the Ecology and Conservation Studies Society. We are most grateful to Kew Gardens, and particularly to Dr Elaine Porter for providing the facilities of the lecture theatre. The lectures would not be possible without this assistance. For further details contact the Society at ecssoc@gmail.com

Download Jodrell Gate Directions Jpeg

Branding the Elephant Gathering - How it came about

I am often asked about how the Elephant Gathering was branded. I have copied below one of my key articles on it which was published in the Daily FT in 2012. It also includes a post publication commentary on the key stages which I have attached following up on conversations I have had with students studying for MBAs in Business or Marketing who want to understand the process of taking a product to market.

I have also attached a pdf of some of my other articles in relation to The Elephant Gathering, totaling 14 articles. In the early 2000s, Jetwing Eco Holidays and Jetwing Hotels played a key role in developing marketing literature which was prited and distributed at key consumer events such as the British Birdwatching Fair and trade and consumer fairs in London such as World Travel Market (WTM) and Destinations. A Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) branded version was developed of the information brief. This can be downloaded using this link. People are welcome to upload it to private and commercial websites.

de Silva Wijeyeratne, G. (2012). Branding Wildlife Brands. The Elephant Gathering. Daily FT. Thursday 27 September 2012. Tourism and Sustainable Energy Supplement. Page 12.

A road map to build wildlife brands and monetise wildlife

Post publication summary

• The article below explains the stages involved in bringing a wildlife ‘story to market’.

• It explains the difference between a ‘stand alone’, possibly random wildlife encounter versus collating a body of credible data, connecting the dots and proving an insight into a big picture story that has international significance.

• The key stages articulated in this article for building wildlife brands are as follows.

	Stages in developing and branding wildlife products
1.	Appetite: There must be an appetite for the product.
2.	The Three Es: Establish the encounter rate, encounter time and encounter zone using data collection in the field. The data may establish a new hypothesis or verify an existing hypothesis.
3.	Significance: Ascertain the story’s significance in an international context. E.g. ‘Largest annual concentration of wild elephants in the world’.
4.	Media brief: Put together a credible media brief or story.
5.	Tagline: Develop and a branding tagline. Ideally it should succinctly convey the key message on what is to be seen and why it is good. E.g. ‘Best for Blue Whale’. Let it evolve in response to market feedback and knowledge of its international significance.
6.	Media Campaign: Launch an extensive and long-running media campaign around a sellable product.
7.	Co-champions: Share the workload of the campaign with one or more other champions so that it is sustained until there is take-up by consumers and tour operators.

The Original Article

The Elephant Gathering is the largest annually recurring gathering of wild elephants anywhere in the world. In 2011it was listed by Lonely Planet as amongst the top ten wildlife spectacles in the world. In the same year, the British publication Wild Travel included it in the list of top 100 natural events to see. This article, using the Elephant Gathering as an example, illustrates the key stages in branding and marketing a wildlife event as an internationally-significant event. It was the same generic process with established Sri Lanka as the top spot for Leopard Safaris and Blue Whales.

Let me summarise the key stages. Firstly, there must be an appetite for the product. Secondly, one needs to establish the encounter rate, encounter time and encounter zone using data collection in the field. The data may establish a new hypothesis or verify an existing hypothesis. Thirdly, one needs to ascertain the story’s significance in an international context. Fourthly, one needs to put together a credible media brief or story. Fifthly, a branding tagline. Sixthly, launch an extensive and long running media campaign around a sellable product. Finally, share the campaign with one or more other champions so that it is sustained until there is take up by buyers. Then, of course, there is the element of luck and timing.

When I first visited Minneriya, the local safari operators knew that elephants could be seen on the lake bed in the dry season. They would drive onto the lake bed and show the first group of elephants they came across. Job done, they would drive back. Whether they saw five elephants or ten elephants, they went away happy. I pieced together the story that it was the largest annually recurring gathering of elephants in the world. Fortunately, I was joined in the campaign to brand it as an event at an early stage by Srilal Miththapala and Chitral Jayatilake.

The three of us drew upon these seven stages of branding to elevate merely seeing a handful of elephants into an internationally-branded event. It needed a team of product developers from the city who had the right connections in the travel industry, and local and international media. It’s unlikely that any of the local safari operators could have envisioned the branding and would have had the connections to make it happen.

I first heard about elephant watching at Minneriya when I was visiting from London to research A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Sri Lanka published by the Oriental Bird Club in 1997. On that visit, I was told the ‘dirt roads’ were waterlogged and there was no access. The assumption was that the elephants were there, but the jeeps could not get to them. I subsequently explained what was really happening. During the wet season, there is a degree of dispersal by the elephants, whilst during the dry season, a larger number converges together. In December 1999, I returned to Sri Lanka for eleven years. I was keen to see the elephants at Minneriya and Kaudulla and subsequently took a local safari during the dry season. We came across a relatively large group of around twenty elephants. The job done, most of the safari vehicles turned back with the tourists; however, I asked our driver to take me along the length of the park.

This is where luck comes in. I was the right man in the right place that day. I was a science enthusiast and, by the age of fifteen, I had read up on census techniques. As we drove, I began to count, 20, 30, 70, etc. I realised that particular day that there were over a hundred elephants on the lake bed. I was excited. Perhaps this could become an important eco-tourism spectacle such as the doomed elephants, around a hundred, which once gathered at Handapanagala in the the late1980s.

I began to visit Minneriya on holidays when I was working for a bank and later, more frequently when I joined the conglomerate Jetwing. One day, I estimated around 300 elephants. That was exceptional. But it was not unusual to have days when I transacted the length of the lake bed to count over 200 elephants or have 100 in the field of view. I realised this was an event possibly bigger than at Handapanagala where elephants once congregated. I am fairly sure that this was the first realisation by anyone that this just might be an event worth publicising more widely.

The next step was to put it into context. Fortunately for me, in 2003, the Biodiversity Conservation Trust had arranged the ‘Symposium on Human Elephant Relationships and Conflicts’ in Colombo. Many of the world’s leading authorities on elephants were there, including Ian Douglas-Hamilton. I was particularly interested in establishing whether this was the biggest gathering of its kind. Ian Douglas-Hamilton told me of two ad hoc gatherings of African Elephants which could number between 400- 500 elephants at times of severe drought. But it was not recurring in a predictable, annual fashion and could not be used for tourism.

At the time of the elephant symposium, I had already begun to clumsily brand it as a ‘Migration of Elephants’ which was not a correct tag line. But over the next year or two, I refined it and the label, ‘The Gathering’ evolved and stuck, with a few variations evolving such as the ‘The Elephant Gathering’ which lends more clarity. (After 2010, when I needed to come up with a one-line summary for the international press, I began to pitch it as the ‘largest annual gathering of elephants’).

With a context and a branding, I began writing to explain the phenomenon and to get the story out with local and foreign media. The publicity was picked on by others in the travel industry, notably Srilal Miththapala and Chitral Jayatilake, who were both working for big companies (Serendib Leisure and John Keells respectively). Their involvement was crucial in the media campaign and also in the product delivery. These two groups and Jetwing were well resourced with hotel and tour operator divisions. Miththapala, who was an ‘elephant man’, took up The Elephant Gathering as one of his personal crusades and had a huge impact on the take-up by the industry and media. He also began a process for his staff to collect data. Jayatilake led a very visible commercial campaign for John Keells and also played host to local and international media.

In 2010, the concept of ‘The Gathering’ also began to fit into the wider story that Sri Lanka is the best for big game outside Africa. Although I have taken the lead to craft these big stories, establishing them is a collective effort involving a large number of individuals from many sectors.

An understanding of the life cycle of what one might term ‘eco-tourism product development’ can also help address some misconceptions. One misconception is that seeing an animal first means you knew the ‘story’. I was not the first to see Leopards or Blue Whales in Sri Lanka, but I was certainly the first to ‘market the story’ internationally that Sri Lanka is the best place in the world in which to see and photograph them. It will be hard to explain to a local who had been showing elephants at Minneriya or Kaudulla that their seemingly random encounters with a few elephants at a time does not equate to what is now branded as ‘The Elephant Gathering’. Making the case for the latter required gathering field data, combined with an awareness that it could be an internationally-significant tourism attraction, plus much hard work to promote it as a viable concept.  

The publicity around stories like The Elephant Gathering, Best for Blue Whale, Best for Leopard Safaris, best for Sperm Whale Super-Pods, etc has a number of other benefits. It inspires an interest in wildlife and creates an economic case for conservation. It also draws attention to local scientists who are thrust into the media spotlight.

Acknowledgements

Tara Wikramanayake copy edited the original draft. Vanessa Williams-Grey edited a revised draft and made useful suggestions.

Wildlife Activities in London

Useful Information

A number of groups in London organise a range of bird watching and other nature walks as well as day trips by coach or using public transport to sites further afield from London. Three groups which are especially suited for residents and visitors in central London are listed below.

 

London Natural History Society 

Marylebone Birdwatching Society

RSPB Central London Local Group

 

 

Wildlife Events pdf

 

A compilation of wildlife events mainly from organisations which have a central London base are emailed out in pdf form to coincide with a reminder of the London Bird Club walks which are organised monthly in the period September to March (but excluding December).

 

An example is attached here.

 

 

 

Request for Images

Ongoing Request for Sri Lanka Wildlife Images and Guidelines for Image Contributors

Introduction
I have authored and been the principal photographer for a number of photographic field guides to wildlife of Sri Lanka. The motivation behind these books is to impart field skills,  get people interested in nature and conservation and to align an economic agenda with conservation by building capacity for wildlife tourism. It is not to showcase myself as a photographer. Therefore, I am always happy to replace my images with those of others and share the opportunity to have images published in a book.

As my books roll through various stages of reprints/editions, I am continuously adding to a pool of shortlisted images that are potential replacements or additions. The following guidelines for contributors of images have been written to help people who may not be familiar with the publishing process.

Timing: When to Submit Images?
Please send me good images as and when you take them. I am very organised and efficiently maintain a pool of potential replacement images and additions so that I can send them to the publisher at very short notice.

I may at best only receive 2-3 weeks to send in revisions for a revised edition and I will have no time at this stage to follow up with  people for images. I can only use images I have received months in advance and have already shortlisted.

Permissions
All images must be the copyright of the contributing photographer.

Composition, Format and Cropping
Some pictures I receive are not suitable for use in a book to be published by a professional natural history publisher. Therefore, please carefully read the following guidelines.

• Please send images as high res jpegs (not TIFFs which are very big). Most photographers will need to output jpegs afresh from their RAW files with the output quality at the highest setting. In a good spec digital SLR, the image size will be between 8-20 megs before cropping.

• If images are subsequently cropped, make sure they retain the original 3:2 landscape image proportion that is the default setting for SLR cameras. Cropped images will need to be at least 1Meg in size to be suitable for publication. Do not crop too tightly; the designers need some room to manoeuvre.

• Only send your best images. Preferably just one or two per species which show the plant or animal well and are sharp, well composed, have good light, etc.

• Do not apply sharpening. The designers will apply post-processing if needed.

• Species which are not easy to see or photograph will have a higher chance of being used.

• Images which show identification features are such as wing-bars in flight for birds are as useful as static portraits of a perched bird. With butterflies, both underwing and upperwing images are useful. With trees, images of the bark, flower, fruit and leaves are useful.

Dropbox
The preferred and most time efficient way for me to receive a large number of images is via dropbox. It only takes a minute to register with an email and a password of your choice on www.dropbox.com. There is an option for signing up free of charge. Only the professional options cost money. You can share the folder or create a link and email me the link. If you only have a few images to email and these are less than 8-10 megs in total, an email is fine.

Identification of Species and Photographer
Please label each jpeg with the name of the species and the name of the photographer. Images in the publishing process get copied from one folder to another and passed on to different people for layout and design. Labelling each filename with the photographer’s name reduces the risk of mishaps with images being attributed incorrectly. E.g.
Peregrine (c) Joe Bloggs xxxxnnn.jpg
Yellow Wagtail (c) Joe Bloggs xxxxnn.jpg

It may be useful to retain the RAW file number (xxxnnn in the examples above) or date and location information you put in, when the jpeg was generated from your RAW file. If I come back to you and ask for more images in that sequence, it will be easier for you to locate your files.

Image Credits in Book
All images used will be credited.  But note that the credits will be at the end of the book, in the current style of the books that are published by all of the professional publishers, be it a publishing giant like Bloomsbury or Collins or a medium-sized international publisher like New Holland or John Beaufoy Publishing.

Publisher’s Terms
The majority of photographic field guides, even by international publishers, are specialist titles with small print runs. The majority of the international publishers do not offer fees for images. Some publishers will offer a single complimentary copy irrespective of the number of images used.
For books published by John Beaufoy Publishing, the publisher has a ‘books for images formula’. They give one book per 5 images used up to a maximum of 5 books per photographer. Therefore if 15 images are used, then the photographer receives 3 books. If 14 images are used, then only 2 books will be given....and so on up to the maximum. This is when the images are used for the first time. On subsequent prints and editions, the publisher will not give more new books. This is partly to minimise the admin and partly to manage the economics as these specialist titles have relatively small print runs. (For background info and context, as the author, I receive two books on first publication from one of the publishers).

With all of the international publishers, even as the author I do not receive free copies on reprints and new editions. This is again for the reasons of managing admin time and costs to the publisher. I obviously do see page proofs when a revised edition is being worked on.

What Species Groups?
Given below are some additional notes on the species groups I am interested in.

• Birds
Different sexes, plumages (immature, adult), flight and perched.

• Butterflies
Upperwing and underwing are both desirable.

• Dragonflies
Different sexes, maturity stages (immature, adult).

• Trees
Images must be accurately identified with species in filename to be of any use to me. Ideally, I need images of some or all of the whole tree (often difficult), flowers, leaf, fruit and bark. 
With flowers, note that with some tree species, flowers may be unisexual with male and female flowers on the same tree or on different trees; some species may have on the same tree, bisexual flowers as well as male and/or female flowers (botany is more complicated than birds).

• Mammals
In addition to images illustrating the mammals, anything showing behaviour is useful.

Why should you help?
It is satisfying to see your images in print which is a nice complement to other forms of publishing images such as posting them on social media. Sometimes having your images in print can open doors for useful invitations to the photographers.

But most of all, these affordable, portable and practically useful photographic guides help to enthuse people from a wide variety of backgrounds to take an interest in wildlife and conservation. Because they are affordable, they are often gifted to local guides by both foreign visitors and better off local visitors. They make a real impact in capacity building in Sri Lanka amongst local guides at various Sri Lankan national parks and reserves where the guides would not have the money or the convenience to buy the books. They help to brand and develop Sri Lanka as a wildlife tourism destination and the money trickles down to grass roots level all over the country. So your photographs can play a part in conservation and poverty alleviation. As an author, doing something socially useful is a key motivator for me.

How to contact me?
If we have not corresponded before, please contact me using my gmail with ‘Submitting Sri Lanka Wildlife Images’ as the subject header. To avoid internet bots harvesting my email details, I have not included the full email below. Please add the bit below, before the (at)gmail.com.
gehan.desilva.w

 My publications can also be seen on Amazon.
 

Are your BirdTrack records being passed on to the LNHS?

Passing on your BirdTrack Records for the London Bird Report
The London Bird Report team have for the past few years been given access to BirdTrack records in our recording area. Following a query from one of our contributors, we’ve found that his records weren’t reaching us though. The BirdTrack system seems to have a default setting so that users have to say they want records sent to their local bird club recorder.

So, if you are sending bird records to BirdTrack, please would you log in to BirdTrack and check the option ‘My details & settings’. At the bottom of that page, if it says ‘You have asked us not to forward your records to local bird recorders’ then we won’t be seeing your records. You can’t alter this setting directly. You’ll have to email BirdTrack to ask them to change this. If this is the case, please ask if they could also send all your previous records to us too.

Pete Lambert
Chair of the London Bird Report Editorial Board

Background Information
The London Bird Report is published annually by the London Bird Club, a section of the London Natural History Society.

It has been published since 1937 and with 80 issues to date sets a benchmark for publications of this genre. It is an A5 sized full colour publication of 256 pages. It is a comprehensive review of bird records for London for the year and includes a number of papers.

My House of Sky: The Biography of J.A. Baker by Hetty Saunders, Panel Discussion at the London Review Bookshop

 

On Wednesday 15 July 2017, I was privileged to attend a public, ticketed event at the London Review Bookshop. The LRB in Bury Street, within sight of the British Museum is a charming book shop with a huge range of titles and cosy café. They run a series of ticketed literary events and I would recommend signing up to their mailing list. My House of Sky written by Hetty Saunders was a biography on J.A. Baker, a very significant figure in English Literature. The book was immediately recognised as a fine piece of literary writing. Robert Macfarlane one of the finest contemporary exponents of nature writing spoke of how Baker influenced many writers with his ability to see the world with a heightened sense of visual acuity (my paraphrasing as I did not make notes of what he actually said). Macfarlane did mention that Baker's writing was 'landscape on acid', a phrase that struck me and resonated with a passage that John Fanshawe read out from one of the earliest editions of The Peregrine. The panel and the discussion was electric. It was moderated by Gareth Evans who handled it masterly and stitched questions from the audience and the comments from the panellists into succinct, intermittent re-caps whilst maintaining momentum.

Baker's writing straddled genres. It was a book that deeply affected birders, environmentalists and followers of literature in equal measure. Mark Cocker in the November 2017 issue of BBC Wildlife magazine writes of Baker's influence and refers to him being credited for setting the gold standard in British nature writing. Mark Conor Jameson in Silent Spring Revisited (Bloomsbury) opens his book with Baker. The involvement of Fanshawe reinforced the link with birders. Fanshawe is a familiar name to birders having co-authored field guides to the Birds of East Africa and another title on the Birds of the Horn of Africa. Whilst reviewing Phil Gregory's Birds of New Guinea, I learnt from the acknowledgements that Fanshawe had been an inspiration for that book.

Baker has remained an elusive figure, with very little known about him. All that changed when Fanshawe was contacted by a relative and received a treasure trove of material which is currently deposited with the University of Sussex. Hetty Saunders nearly did not sign up for a course in writing. But she did and Macfarlane one of the course tutors asked her to look at Baker's material and catalogue it. One thing led to another and just over two years after finishing her course has emerged this biography of one of the most important figures in British literature and the inspiration behind many of the best nature writers in Britain.

Panel discussions have their own dynamic and I was glad to have attended as insights come out of discussion. The fact that Baker's writing is special, is self evident. But I was also struck by Macfarlane and Saunders discussing that Baker was very much aware that he was working on something special and in his manuscript maintained a page count and running count of verbs, nouns, metaphors and so on. This was a numerical measure of the punch he was packing in to his writing by using metaphors to colour the book. The biography carries a foreword by Macfarlane and an afterword by Fanshawe, which reinforces how Baker was both a nature writer, a bird watcher and an environmentalist.

Evans more than once pointed out that Little Toller Books may be little by name and but a giant in stature to have published this book. I was able to chat with Jon Woolcott from the publisher and learn that they at times use crowd funding to fund books and at least twenty of the initial crowd funders were at the event. I am not in the loop on the background to the publishing of the biography but no doubt it is a coup to have beaten the giants of publishing to publish My House of Sky. Little Toller Books have also published authors such as Richard Mabey and Oliver Rackham, whose books are a source of inspiration for me as I labour over a guide to the common trees of Sri Lanka.

For readers who may be interested in more information I have copied below the press release from Little Toller Books.


PRESS RELEASE

My House of Sky - the first biography of writer J. A. Baker
J. A. Baker was the most ordinary of men. He was happily married, lived in a council house in Chelmsford and worked at the Automobile Association offices in Essex. Yet when his book The Peregrine was published 50 years ago, he became one of the greatest nature writers of the twentieth century.

J. A. Baker is revered all around the world today for his intense insight into the landscapes and nature of the British countryside. An extraordinary prose stylist, widely celebrated while he was alive, Baker fell into obscurity after his death 30 years ago. His books were no longer printed. Nobody knew anything about him. Baker became a dim silhouette.

Until now. With The Peregrine enjoying its 50th anniversary this year, the small, independent publisher Little Toller Books is publishing the first biography of J. A. Baker, exploring how he came to become such an important voice for nature and influential writer.

My House of Sky will be published in November 2017. The author, Hetty Saunders, worked with Robert Macfarlane (author of Landmarks, Holloway and The Old Ways) and conservationist John Fanshawe (of BirdLife International) to piece together a fascinating portrait of J. A. Baker. This is the first book that Saunders has written, admitting: "I became a bit obsessed with Baker – he has that effect on people – he captures them and drags them in….every time I thought I’d pinned something down, or learnt it for sure, something new would creep out of the woodwork." She adds: "as I went through his material, journals and archives, I feel I got to know J A Baker, but it’s an incomplete picture and there are still lots of intriguing questions about his life that have remained unanswered, which I think is fitting for a man who was as elusive as the peregrines he followed."

What emerges is a man obsessed with his subject – someone who, for more than a decade before The Peregrine was published, spent all of his spare time out on his bicycle, binoculars slung over one shoulder and a flask of coffee in the pocket of his heavy gabardine coat, recording in meticulous detail every bird he saw in his home county of Essex. His journals and diaries are full of the descriptions of wildlife which ended up in his books. He annotated Ordnance Survey maps with his sightings – examples of these appear in My House of Sky, alongside photographs of the journal. But despite this obsessive behaviour he retained a playful side, as Saunders says "he signed off letters to friends with the words ‘your faithful jester’", was a fan of writers like G K Chesterton, and loved to tell humorous anecdotes. Saunders says his writing is sometimes at odds with this. "It can be quite austere, quite misanthropic, very distant, but the character that came through from the archive was very funny, had lots of warmth, and I felt that this was a story that needed to be told."

The biography also reveals Baker’s lifelong passion for reading, his troubled relationship with his father, and how his terrible experiences of the Blitz as a teenager shaped both his birdwatching skills and his brilliant writing. Like many civilians, Baker was deeply scarred by the Blitz and spent time at a ‘rehabilitation centre’ in Sussex to help overcome his anxiety. Being outside walking, birdwatching or cycling helped him recover and establish himself as a successful writer.

As well as including some of Baker’s previously unpublished poetry My House of Sky also reveals the tantalising prospect of an undiscovered, book - something that Baker had been working on for years
but never published. Although it is not clear whether this was fiction or non-fiction, Little Toller Books hope that this new biography will help encourage people who might have known Baker to come forward if they have any letters, photographs or memories of him. Saunders is optimistic about the prospect of another book. "We know he was writing a third book at the time of his death – there are hints in the notes that Baker left about a new book and letters to admiring readers assuring them of new work to come, but so far it has not been found." The archive was collected from Baker’s family and friends and it remains possible that somewhere, in a loft, or forgotten drawer, is the third book from this elusive genius.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the first publication of The Peregrine, which was one of the first literary works to examine the impacts of pesticides on wild animals and the environment, the effects of which are still being seen today. As Saunders says "Baker was sensitive to the needs of nature in a way that many weren’t in the late 1960s. He was ahead of his time, and his writing style is still so striking, and the content about species extinction so prophetic that it feels almost ahead of our time."

Little Toller Books publication has a foreword by Robert Macfarlane, an afterword by John Fanshawe, and is illustrated throughout by photographs by Christopher Matthews, including images of the journal pages and diaries, of maps annotated by Baker, his binoculars and telescopes for birdwatching, all of which make up a large section in the book. The special edition of the book will include a special print by the stone carver Jo Sweeting, inspired by Baker and his work.

The new book has already been enthusiastically endorsed by the British reading public. Little Toller Books launched a crowd-funding scheme to enable publication of the book and within days achieved the target.

My House of Sky is published on November 1, 2017, by Little Toller Books (RRP £20).

Left: Gareth Evans (Moderator). Right: Hetty Saunders and Robert Macfarlane

Left: Hetty Saunders. Right: John Fanshawe reading from an early edition of The Peregrine.

 

Acknowledgements
My thanks to Johnny and Shalmali Paterson who gave me their tickets when I found the event booked out, weeks ahead.

The Peregrine images below are  (c) James Sellen. They are not from the book. My thanks to James for allowing me to use these to show what a magnificent bird of prey the Peregrine is. Anyone interested in birds and other wildlife and living within a 20 mile radius of St Pauls Cathedral may find it useful to visit the website of the London Natural History Society and to consider membership.