Tag: fox

Book Review: Goshawk Summer by James Aldred

On By tontowilliamsIn Book Review

Goshawk Summer by James Aldred

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

This is the story of the authors Spring and Summer 2020, and how he spent that time filming a nest of Goshawks up high in the canopy of the New Forest.

We learn of the character of this magnificent raptor and master predator and also foxes, Dartford Warbler, deer, curlew, woodlark, lapwing and many other species.

This is a fascinating insight into the Goshawk and the work of a wildlife cameraman, with incredible species knowledge and detail but also the more mundane aspects of being at the top of a tree in a hide waiting for something to happen. How everything is done to put the subject matter first and not disturb them, but at the same time being there to capture the perfect sequence.

Recorded over the period of the first lockdown in England for coronavirus and how he was able to keep working, the book also charts those changes. As the New Forest goes from relative quiet and stillness and the natural inhabitants seemingly expand to fill the void of humans; to a much busier and more frantic space as the restrictions are slowly lifted.

James Aldred takes you perfectly to the heart of his work space, I spent several hours lost with him watching the different species and captivated by their activity and behaviour. His book manages to tell the tale of what his camera sees without the moving images to back up the words. He perfectly captures the moment and takes the reader there.

From The Publisher

ln early 2020, wildlife cameraman James Aldred was commissioned to film the lives of a family of goshawks in the New Forest, his childhood home. He began to plan a treetop hide in a remote site that would allow him to film the gos nest, the newly hatched chicks and the lives of these elusive and enchanting birds.

Then lockdown. And as the world retreated, something remarkable happened. The noise of our everyday stilled. No more cars, no more off-roaders, no more airplanes roaring in the skies, no one in the goshawk woods – except James.

At this unique moment, James was granted a once in a lifetime opportunity to keep filming. And so, over that spring and into summer, he began to write about his experiences in a place empty of people, but filled with birdsong and new life. Amidst the fragility and the fear, there was silver moonlight, tumbling fox cubs, calling curlew and, of course, the soaring goshawks.

About The Author

JAMES ALDRED is the celebrated author of The Man Who Climbs Trees (Allen Lane) and an Emmy Award winning
documentary wildlife cameraman and film-maker. He works with the likes of the BBC and National Geographic and has collaborated with Sir David Attenborough on numerous projects including ‘Life of Mammals’,’Planet Earth’ and
‘Our Planet’.

He grew up in the New Forest and now lives in North Somerset. A product of the BBC natural history unit in Bristol, he has been a wildlife cameraman since 1997 and has been nominated for BAFTA/RTS awards many times. He specializes in forest filming, especially at height within forest canopy, where he uses ropes and canopy platforms to film orangutans, chimps and birds of prey. He spent the national lockdown of Spring and Summer 2020 filming in the New Forest.

Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other by James Aldred is published by Elliott & Thompson and available from 29th July 2021

[Disclaimer: The publishers very kindly sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I have received no payment for this review, and the thoughts are my own.]

All Over The Place TWTW # 97

On By tontowilliamsIn books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, tv, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story

This post could be all over the place. It seems WordPress have updated the editor that I use to write posts, and to be blunt, it’s awful. Admittedly part of this is having to learn a new system and I can’t find the things I want or make it do what I want it to. But I suspect part of it is some designers “clever” idea of a minimalist set up. Suffice to say it’s ****, so apologies if things are all over the place and a little off kilter.

Add that to the fact that I had my first “Christmas Shopping” email this week, it’s been an interesting week overall. I have no idea what our Christmas is going to be like this year, but suffice to say it will be different.

We don’t have Thanksgiving in the UK but one of the posts from a newsletter that I read is thinking about how to make that a safe event.

I realised this week that I’ve read 70 books so far this year. This is a year that I started out thinking back on January 1st was going to be one where I would have very little time for reading. The coronavirus arrived in this country and lockdown happened and despite thinking throughout lockdown that I was struggling to read anything, I seem to have read 70 books. Go figure.

I’ve been reading Charles Stross’s Labyrinth Index this week, although I must admit to being a little bit lost by the story, even though it did fully resolve itself in the last 100 or so pages and I really liked the ending with an iconic aircraft that was one of the loves of my childhood. I’ve also been listening to Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour which has been an interesting listen.

We’ve not had the television on all that much this week, mostly we’ve been too tired to bother and since it’s mostly depressing news we’ve not watched much apart from an Australian series – Mystery Road 2 – we watched the first season last year and there’ve been a couple of movies with the same lead character. Unfortunately it’s not really holding our attention so I’m not sure whether we will get to the end of it or not.

I seem to be all caught up with podcasts at the moment, which is the first time in a while.

Not much allotment action this week due to the rain. We’ve had a couple of intense storms sweep through and they’ve brought a lot of water down. My visits have mostly been to make sure everything is okay rather than actually do anything. I’m pleased to see that the garlic has sprouted, but no signs from the onions or broad beans just yet.

I had a delivery of some of the new Field Notes this week. The new United States of Letterpress editions and the latest American National Parks set. I am using less pocket notebooks at the moment, mostly because I am out and about less but I do like these. I got mine from Nero’s Notes if you’re interested in ordering your own, they provide great service.

I also completed a volume of my journal this week. This represents volume one of 2020, about 230ish pages. For those interested the book itself is a Leuchtturm1917, ruled, A5, hardcover.

A trip to the vets this week for Wilson’s regular blood test. We had to drive through the worst of one of the storms and maybe it’s my age but I’ve never felt less like driving anywhere. If it hadn’t been for the appointment I think we might have found somewhere safe to pull over and wait out the weather front as it lashed down. Motorways were flooded and although the majority of drivers were being sensible there were the odd handful who seemed to think that their mortality and that of those around them was expendable.

We await the results of the blood test now – probably due Monday.

I’ve been enjoying watching Matt Maran’s fox videos this week.

That’s it for this week, I’ve run out of steam trying to get this post together, hopefully when it goes live it will at least be readable.

Thanks for reading, take care and stay safe and well.

A Fox In The Darkness At Nighttime TWTW # 41

On By tontowilliamsIn books, Gadgets, Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, tv, Wildlife/Nature

We had our first big Autumn / Winter storm of the weekend. Wet and windy, trees down, power cuts, the whole shebang. For once the weather warning was pretty accurate, which is what they’re for. Otherwise this week has mostly been about the client work. I’ve reached some fairly major milestones with a couple of clients but as it’s been half-term here this last week my clients have mostly been quiet. It’s interesting working in that ecosystem again where school holidays often dictate staff holidays (not unsurprisingly) but not my own.

img_20191029_154754176I had a delivery of some new ink this week. This was a little present to myself for reaching client milestones.

They’re Sky Blue and Prairie Green. I love the green, but I have to say that I’m not sure who’s sky is that blue. It’s much lighter than what I would say is Sky Blue. These are a couple of special edition bottles, and I hope that the green becomes a regular part of their range as I would use it on a regular basis. If not when it’s gone, it’s gone.

 

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This week I’ve mostly been reading Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson. I say reading because I haven’t been much progress, although I did finally finish it late last night. Most of my reading has been around bedtime but sleep has been creeping up on me by the time I’ve read a few pages and so the story is building very slowly.

I am enjoying it though, I wonder whether it is going to be the first book of a trilogy, like his Mars books were (Red, Blue, Green), as the ending doesn’t resolve any of the plot. There is an untitled “Kim Stanley Robinson Book 2” listed on Amazon which you can pre-order for October 2020, so it seems quite possible.

The government has banned fracking. I’m a little surprised by the announcement, as it seemed the government was going to be forever the hypocrite of saying they were doing wonderful things to stop climate change whilst allowing the practice of fracking to take place. It’s interesting though that I haven’t seen any comment on this from the fracking industry itself. I’m sure they’re not happy about it and in all honesty would expect them to sue the government.

How HP Lovecraft became the world’s favourite horror writer

Bread and Books – Seth Godin

Photo’s from the California wildfires

The Bic Biro: Design Classics

Aaron Sorkin: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg – The New York Times

Remember: it’s austerity, not Europe that broke Britain

We’ve been watching Season 2 of Jack Ryan, in fact we watched all 8 episodes over Friday to Sunday evenings. It was good, but not as good as Season 1, although I’m glad it didn’t follow the ISIS / Al-Qaeda trope that so many TV series seem to. Overall probably about 2.5 stars out of 5.

Something has been digging up one of the recently dug and planted (broad beans) beds on the allotment. I’m not sure what it was although I had my suspicions that it might have been the badgers. So I set up the trail cam to see if I could catch the culprit in action. It didn’t actually capture anything in the act, although it did capture a picture of a fox. I’m not sure what happened but I think a combination of the cold and low batteries means that after it captured that one image the camera stopped working. So I might have to try again, once again I get some new batteries.

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Other than that I’ve been quiet on the plot because of the stormy weather.

img_20191029_160017559The laptop that I’m writing this on, and is my current main business and everything else tool is beginning to show it’s age and I’ve been thinking that I need to upgrade it sooner rather than later. My plan currently is to wait until Black Friday / Cyber Monday in the hope that I might get a little bit of a discount on a new one. Having researched what I need and getting it down to 3 or 4 possibilities. If that happens the plan is to then move files and everything else over during the downtime between Christmas and New Year. In the meantime my current machine took about six hours to do an update last week. Fortunately I’d finished working for the day, and so just left the machine running until it was done (just before I went to bed).

The week ahead sees me on the road again for a client visit and I have a choice of audiobooks for the journey – not sure which I’m going to opt for yet. I also need to work out what “physical” book I’m going to pick up next.

Whatever you’re up to this week have a good one!

Who’s Been Digging My Potatoes?

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I paid an early morning visit to the allotment today. It’s the first time that I’ve made it down there since last weekend, due to other things going on, but everything at first glance looked okay. Or at least so I thought, because then I noticed that there were a few potatoes sitting on the surface of the plot, when really they should be still buried under ground. It looks as though something, my guess would be a fox, has been digging them up.

I don’t really mind sharing some of my crops, however they haven’t been taken away, just left on the surface, so obviously they’re not tasty unless cooked!

I think tomorrow, I will dig up the remainder, which is a job I need to do anyway, as I don’t want to loose the crop, from an over curious visitor 🙂

On By tontowilliamsIn Fork To Fork, Garden / Allotment, Wildlife/Nature