Wild Kingdom - A Book Review

It has been a while since I have written a book review and so I thought I would take a moment to write a little about this excellent book.

‘Wild Kingdom – Bringing back Britain’s Wildlife’ by Stephen Moss is a delightful read by a well regarded naturalist an author.

Stephen aside from his books is his work as the original producer of Springwatch. His first book was published in 1995 and was called ‘Birds and Weather’ and charted how birds were affected by climate change.

His latest book ‘Wild Kingdom’ is a whistle stop tour of habitats in the UK. He outlines how the wildlife in Britain has changed and what could be done to help improve matters.

Such a book could become depressing as disappearing species and habitat loss take their toll but Stephen manages to explain these losses in the context in which they occurred and offered sensible ways forward.

His prose are concise and yet lyrical, helping to conjure up the poetry of some of the species and the evoke landscapes and habitats of yesteryear. As a naturalist myself there was still much to learn from his book and it helped coalesce some of the ideas that are starting to drive my ecological theory of the direction Britain needs to move in to protect wildlife.

Each chapter explores a habitat in turn and describes the plights of different species in the face of the modern world. This includes species that have successfully adapted to our hectic lives and have found ways to flourish.

If I have one complaint it is that the book is not long enough. That is not to say that it is a short book, but that it is perhaps its easy readability that makes this book feel shorter than it is.

I highly recommend this highly accessible, thought provoking and informative book to anyone interested in the countryside and British wildlife.

As with all books these days it is available from Amazon other book retailers are available.