This debut by Stephen Rutt is a wonderful book, his writing is a joy to read so informative and about the birds that tend to get ignored either because they are too far away to find or the cheeky buggers are stealing your chips.  His love for these birds really shows and you can't help but fall for them too.  We get (I think) grey-backed gulls hanging around our house and I now see them in a new light, they've always seemed noisy and boisterous but now I can see the elegance as they glide in a circle above me.

The book starts with Rutt being overwhelmed by living in London and his need to get away, so he spends 7 months in that glorious place Orkney.  This is the place I would most love to visit, it seems to be the place to go to cleanse yourself of the nonsense of civilisation, the healing powers of nature are strong there.  The book has a journal feel to it, mixed in with facts about the birds is his experiences and how he recuperates, there are a number of funny anecdotes which gave me a good laugh, the vending machine was funny.  There is nice mixture of info in each chapter, facts about the birds, how the birds have influenced people throughout history and the current decline in their numbers.  The descriptions of the bird's calls were really good...a faulty blender?  I was straight onto google to check that one out.

As with a lot of these nature books a large section is dedicated to how we are killing the birds off with our neglect and plastic waste and this book is no exception.  He does try to point out the good things too, like the Kittiwake tower in Newcastle.  I've never heard of it but it is a wonderful thing to have done, if only more places would come up with great ideas like that.  Go check it out if it's unknown to you.  He also bravely defends the notorious chip thieves you get at the seaside, they are hated by so many but how else are you going to see a wild bird up close like that?


I've now read both books by this author and loved them both, so impressed that they were both published in the same year and very deserving the award he's won.  I hope he is working on a new book and I can't wait to find out what birds it features.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/the-seafarers-a-journey-among-birds-by-stephen-rutt/