Jim Crumley

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. The barn owl is an ambassador for life on the edge. It is the night owl that also hunts fearlessly by day; the silent flier with a sudden shriek that can shatter glass; the restless sentry of the outside edge of the woods with one ear attuned to the grassy banks and the other to the first and last tree shadows; the stone-still embellishment on a country kirkyard gravestone beyond the edge of the village, looking in moonlight like nothing so much as the sculptor s final inspired flourish.

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. Suddenly the boar s face was back, peering up from almost ground level beneath the lowest sweep of the spruce branches. Almost at once, the sow was right beside him. Then came the cubs. For perhaps ten seconds, no more, all four faces gleamed garishly out of the forest at me. They looked like nothing so much as characters in a puppet theatre and an absurd image came into my head of the puppet master crouched behind them, dangling two puppet masks on strings from each hand. In all my badger encounters, nothing has charmed me so utterly as those ten seconds.

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. The birches, the larches, the mountain grasses and the reed bed are all afire, sparkling after sleety rain and in fitful sunlight. It is as if nature has contrived its finest theatrical stage set and then turned up the colour. There are stags roaring, for it is the season of the red deer rut. There are golden eagles in the mountains, peregrines and ravens on nearby crags, and otters on the river. Every spring, reliably at the nesting season, the place floods spectacularly. I have come here to watch a pair of mute swans.

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. The moon climbed high above the trees beyond the far side of the field, contriving a night of raw, primitive beauty out of the still-lingering wisps of mist, the pale, tumbling curves of field, the parallel inked-in blue-black curves of the hedges, the quiet and surprisingly pale shades of the distant firth. Tawny owls stabbed at the darkness with sharp, two-syllable shrieks. Then there was a hare, far down the field. It ran easily out into the moonlight from the hedge on the far side and at once it was partnered in dance by its own giant shadow.

A lyrical and personal account of Jim Crumley’s lifelong quest to find harmony in nature and to hold nature at the centre of his every thought and action as he celebrates our precious planet. Renowned nature writer Jim Crumley draws on more than six decades of immersion in wild landscapes to explore the profound harmony at the heart of the natural world—and why it matters now more than ever. With the lyrical clarity and passionate advocacy that have made him Scotland’s foremost nature commentator, Crumley weaves together close observation, personal encounters, and ecological insight to reveal nature as a vast, interconnected symphony. He argues that our survival depends on relearning how to listen to the land, to recognise our place within the great orchestration of life rather than apart from it. Through evocative prose built on his expertise and care, Crumley urges us to defend the beauty and balance of the living world, offering both a celebration and a clarion call. Symphonic is a vital testament from a writer whose life’s work is a passionate defence and celebration of nature’s enduring—and endangered—harmony.

New and updated edition. In 1743, according to legend, the last wolf in Scotland was killed by a huntsman near Inverness. Long regarded in folk takes and history as a slayer of babies, a robber of graves, a devourer of battlefield dead, its extinction was widely celebrated. But since then, deer have multiplied, destroying the vegetation on which an array of wildlife depends, and it is clear that the entire Highland ecosystem has been thrown off balance by the elimination of a top predator. Jim Crumley believes the old stories are pure fiction – a distortion of reality which prevents people from thinking rationally about the huge benefits wolves could bring. With reference to wolves in other cultures and places, from the south-west of England to Scandinavia and North America, this is a passionate polemic which argues for the return of the wolf to heal the damaged land.

“If you have been still enough for long enough, your eyes will have attuned and begun to read the sea-surge fluently, so you recognize the blunt curve and flourished tail of a diving otter. Home your eyes in on that portion of the sea, permit nothing else to move, and you will see the otter eel-catching, resurfacing.” It is a special privilege and a richly rewarding experience to observe a wild animal hunting, interacting with its young or its mate, exploring its habitat, or escaping a predator. To watch wildlife, it’s essential not only to learn an animal’s ways, the times and places you may find it, but also to look inward: to station yourself, focus, and wait. The experience depends on your stillness, silence, and full attention, watching and listening with minimal movement and if possible staying downwind so that your presence is not sensed. With decades of close observation of wild animals and birds, Jim Crumley has found himself up close and personal with many of our most elusive creatures, studying their movements, noting details, and offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. Here, he draws us into his magical world, showing how we can learn to watch wildlife well, and what doing so can mean for our ability to care for it, and care for ourselves.

Longlisted for the 2022 Highland Book Prize From Jim Crumley, the "pre-eminent Scottish nature-writer” (Guardian), this landmark volume documents the extraordinary natural life of the Scottish Highlands and bears witness to the toll climate chaos is already taking on our wildlife, habitats and biodiversity – laying bare what is at stake for future generations. A display of head-turning autumn finery on Skye provokes Jim Crumley to contemplate both the glories of the season and how far the seasons themselves have shapeshifted since his early days observing his natural surroundings. After a lifetime immersed in Scotland's landscapes and enriched by occasional forays in other northern lands, Jim has amassed knowledge, insight and a bank of memorable imagery chronicling the wonder, tumult and spectacle of nature’s seasonal transformations. He has witnessed not only nature’s unparalleled beauty, but also how climate chaos and humankind has brought unwanted drama to wildlife and widespread destruction of ecosystems and habitats. In this landmark volume, Jim combines lyrical prose and passionate eloquence to lay bare the impact of global warming and urge us all towards a more daring conservation vision that embraces everything from the mountain treeline to a second spring for the wolf.

The Lake District is one of our busiest national parks. Many people believe that wildness is long gone from the fells, lakes, tarns and becks, yet, within its boundaries, Jim Crumley sets out to prove them wrong – to find “a new way of seeing and writing about this most seen and written about of landscapes". With a naturalist’s eye and a poet’s instinct he is drawn to Lakeland’s turned-aside places where nature still thrives, from low-lying shores to a high mountain oakwood that’s not even on the map. Through backwaters and backwoods, Crumley traces this captivating land’s place in the evolution of global conservation and pleads the case for a far-reaching reappraisal of all of Lakeland’s wildness.

In the endless light of summer days, and the magical gloaming of the wee small hours, nature in Jim's beloved Highlands, Perthshire and Trossachs heartlands is burgeoning freely, as though there is one long midsummer's eve, nothing reserved. For our flora and fauna, for the very land itself, this is the time of extravagant growth, flowering and the promise of fruit and the harvest to come. But despite the abundance, as Jim Crumley attests, summer in the Northlands is no Wordsworthian idyll. Climate chaos and its attendant unpredictable weather brings high drama to the lives of the animals and birds he observes. There is also a wild, elemental beauty to the land, mountains, lochs, coasts and skies, a sense of nature at its very apex during this, the most beautiful and lush of seasons. Jim chronicles it all: the wonder, the tumult, the spectacle of summer - and what is at stake as our seasons are pushed beyond nature's limits.

Spring is nature's season of rebirth and rejuvenation. Earth's northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun, winter yields to intensifying light and warmth, and a wild, elemental beauty transforms the Highland landscape and a repertoire of islands from Colonsay to Lindisfarne. Jim Crumley chronicles the wonder, tumult and spectacle of that transformation, but he shows too that it is no Wordsworthian idyll that unfolds. Climate chaos brings unwanted drama to the lives of badger and fox, seal and seabird and raptor, pine marten and sand martin. Jim lays bare the impact of global warming and urges us all towards a more daring conservation vision that embraces everything from the mountain treeline to a second spring for the wolf.

In the abiding light of summer, the nature in Jim Crumley's heartlands of Scotland is burgeoning freely. Seals sing, brown hares bound, dragonflies dance. His silent vigils reveal not only an enchanting account of summer's exuberant profusion, but the unfolding climate chaos. From declining puffin populations to the demise of entire glaciers, this is a world in crisis ... and of everyday miracles on land, mountains, lochs, coasts and skies. Jim Crumley's intimate portraits branch out beyond the heart of the Highlands to memories of summers past: from kittiwake cliffs in far-flung St Kilda to the pure wilderness of Arctic Norway, where sea eagles rule. The Nature of Summer explores what is at stake as our seasons are pushed beyond nature's limits.

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Spring is nature's season of rebirth and rejuvenation. Earth's northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun, winter yields to intensifying light and warmth, and a wild, elemental beauty transforms the Highland landscape and a repertoire of islands from Colonsay to Lindisfarne. Jim Crumley chronicles the wonder, tumult and spectacle of that transformation, but he shows too that it is no Wordsworthian idyll that unfolds. Climate chaos brings unwanted drama to the lives of badger and fox, seal and seabird and raptor, pine marten and sand martin. Jim lays bare the impact of global warming and urges us all towards a more daring conservation vision that embraces everything from the mountain treeline to a second spring for the wolf.

During winter, dark days of wild storms can give way to the perfect, glistening stillness of frost-encrusted winter landscapes - it is the stuff of wonder and beauty, of nature at its utmost. In The Nature of Winter, Jim Crumley ventures into our countryside to experience firsthand the chaos and the quiet solitude of nature's rest period. He bears witness to the lives of remarkable animals such as golden eagles, red deer and even whales as they battle intemperate weather and the turbulence of climate change. In the snow Jim discovers ancient footsteps that lead him to reflect on the journey of his personal nature-writing life - a journey that takes in mountain legends, dear departed friends and an enduring fascination and deep love for nature. Simply, he evokes winter in all its drama, in all its pathos, in all its glory.

Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize, a pilgrimage through the shapes and shades of autumn. In autumn nature stages some of its most enchantingly beautiful displays; yet it's also a period for reflection - melancholy, even - as the days shorten and winter's chill approaches. Charting the colourful progression from September through October and November, Jim Crumley tells the story of how unfolding autumn affects the wildlife and landscapes of his beloved countryside. Along the way, Jim experiences the deer rut, finds phenomenal redwood trees in the most unexpected of places, and contemplates climate change, the death of his father, and his own love of nature. He paints an intimate and deeply personal portrait of a moody and majestic season.

"An utter delight" - Jennifer Tetlow. In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife - here, the otter. With his inimitable passion and vision, Jim relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

"An utter delight" - Jennifer Tetlow. In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife - here, the kingfisher. With his inimitable passion and vision, Jim relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

This beautiful record, on fine paper, is Crumley's homage to these noble creatures, but it is also an elegy, a love song to one swan whose silent tragedy he watched from one season to the next.‘A small mound on white feathers lies on a tussock of grass made grey by a Highland winter. It is all the monument there will ever be to the life of a swan.’With these words, and those that follow, Jim Crumley has ensured that there will be a more enduring witness to the life of this swan, and of all swans, than that pyre of white feathers.Crumley watches, year in year out, as a pair of mute swans struggles, against the odds, to raise young on a wild patch of lock. But the pen starts to lose her eggs to predators; and the cob begins to disappear for longer and longer periods. Until comes the day when a third swan, stronger and younger than the first pen, appears at the other end of the loch.This journal of a swan-watcher, as he calls himself, is an elegy to these noble creatures; and most poignantly it is a memorial to one swan, whose silent drama he has recorded.

During winter, dark days of wild storms can give way to the perfect, glistening stillness of frost-encrusted winter landscapes - it is the stuff of wonder and beauty, of nature at its utmost. In The Nature of Winter, Jim Crumley ventures into our countryside to experience firsthand the chaos and the quiet solitude of nature's rest period. He bears witness to the lives of remarkable animals such as golden eagles, red deer and even whales as they battle intemperate weather and the turbulence of climate change. In the snow Jim discovers ancient footsteps that lead him to reflect on the journey of his personal nature-writing life - a journey that takes in mountain legends, dear departed friends and an enduring fascination and deep love for nature. Simply, he evokes winter in all its drama, in all its pathos, in all its glory.

"An utter delight" - Jennifer Tetlow. In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife - here, the skylark. With his inimitable passion and vision, Jim relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.