RAPTOR: A JOURNEY THROUGH BIRDS. By James Macdonald Lockhart.

(2016) ND recent reprint. 8vo (142 x 222mm). Ppviii,376. B/w vignette illustrations, black end-papers. Black cloth with gilt raptor motifs to spine.

"Fifteen birds of prey, fifteen different landscapes. A journey in search of raptors, a journey through the birds and into their worlds. Beginning in the far north, in Orkney, and winding my way down to a river in Devon. A long journey south, clambering down this tall, spiny island, which is as vast and wondrous to me as any galaxy." (The author). "James Macdonald Lockhart's eyes quiver for birds of prey. For the sea eagle with its imposing eight-foot wingspan and the hen harrier swimming over the land in the dregs of a May gale on Orkney. For the peregrine with its third eyelid to protect its sight when diving on prey at 200mph and the ghostly sparrowhawk displaying in the fields around his home in Warwickshire. A childhood spent surrounded by black and white images of birds his great grandfather - an early pioneer of bird photography - had taken at the beginning of the last century and a holiday on the Isle of Lewis as a young boy set this book in motion many years ago. Exploring both the birds' biology and history, Raptor also unravels their often complicated relationship with man. A magnificent hymn to these beautiful animals, a portrait of a lifelong passion and an account of how raptors and their landscapes have possessed the author, Raptor is a book that will change how we think of our skies." "James MacDonald Lockhart puts the rapture back in the raptor. This is in-the-moment writing, raw in beak and claw. With its gorgeously felt sense of life and place, 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, this is a unique and wonderful work." (Philip Hoare).