Synopsis:

The elusive lives of otters, beavers, badgers, weasels and more are rendered in John Lister-Kaye’s enchanting lyrical style Footprints in the Woods is John Lister-Kaye’s account of a year spent observing the comings and goings of otters, beavers, badgers, weasels and pine martens. This family – Mustelidae – all live in the wild at Aigas, the conservation and field study centre John calls home.

With the patient and meticulous care of a true naturalist, John observes and records the lives, habits and habitats of these elusive animals. Hours of careful waiting and watching in the woods and loch, the river, fields and moorland is rewarded with insight into how these animals live when unhindered by human interference; sometimes red in tooth and claw, but often playful, familial, curious and surprising.

As a boy, badgers and weasels were John’s first encounter with wild animals, now he has spent fifty years living side-by side with them in the Highlands and come to know much of their ways. Footprints in the Woods is the culmination of that long association with the Mustelidae family, a love letter to the otters, beavers, badgers, weasels and pine martens that also call Aigas home, and a reminder of the fragility of habitat and the beauty and variety we have to lose if we don’t choose to actively protect it.

Review:

This an absolutely delightful little book that shares stories about the lives of mustelids living around the home of John Lister-Kaye, an English naturalist and conservationist.

Mustelids include badgers, otters, weasels, beavers and pine martens. I love this family of animals – they are always so characterful, yet often incredibly elusive. As such, you have to wait and wait and wait, (and hope), to spot one and many outings are disappointing, however Lister-Kaye has learned how to wait and where to look for clues.

This isn’t what I would call an educational book. If you don’t know anything at all about these creatures then you’ll definitely learn something, but overall this is a personal story of a life lived in pursuit of nature and of observation.

John Lister-Kaye’s writing is wonderful, weaving an almost fairytale-like series of images for each of the animals we meet in the pages. His passion for this wonderful family is palpable and I couldn’t help but be excited myself whenever the animal he’d been waiting for made itself known. His ability to capture the magic of the waiting and sighting in words is like nothing I’ve read in nature writing before.

Overall this was a wonderful book written by a remarkable naturalist. If you read this and aren’t inspired to get outside and just be with nature then I will be very surprised. Highly recommend.

Thanks to @canongatebooks for sending me a copy of this delightful book.