52 Wildlife Weekends

52 Wildlife Weekends is a book to tease you out and about. It starts with the first weekend in January; Islay in Bute and Argyll for ‘Wild goose chases and whisky chasers’. There are four pages per weekend the fourth of which gives practical details such as grid references of where to look.  The other three pages give selected highlights and in the case of Islay the focus is on barnacle goose, Greenland white-fronted goose, chough, otter and goose barnacle.

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A handy map at the start gives locations of the weekends in Wales, Scotland and England but no Ireland. From Chester to the Chilterns and Gloucestershire to Lincolnshire there is a big gap in middle England; sorry Birmingham. Many of the sites are by the coast and four of the weekends in north to mid Wales.

Weekend 34 in mid August, ‘Mad Manx and mountains’, comes closest to my home with Manx shearwater, osprey, soprano pipistrelle, feral goat and Alpine saw-wort. It seems a good compromise which people could supplement with a bit of online searching. If they really wanted to know more they could take out a subscription to Natur Cymru and buy some back editions!

If marine mammals are your preference there is a table to guide you to the top five weekends of where and when to see them. There’s also a table for combining both A and B but you won’t find a weekend which combines reptiles and fungi at their best!

Well mapped and indexed with great photography and writing by James Lowen which hurries you along with enthusiasm. It’s a book that could go a long way to get people up and out, connecting with the natural world.

Published by Bradt Travel Guides with a price of £14.99. It can be found a bit cheaper online but the best deal is the Natur Cymru reader offer. Just quote CYMRU and you will get it for £9 inclusive of UK postage. If you click on the caption beneath the picture of the book you will go direct to the page for ordering online from Bradt Travel.