Stephen Moss

Welcome to The Accidental Countryside. This is the fascinating and remarkably empowering story of our influence upon the landscape and wildlife of these crowded islands, and of how wildlife has co-opted its most unlikely corners - even when we least expected it. From the seabirds sheltering in the prehistoric stone structures of Shetland to the peat diggings in Somerset teeming with life, and from the rare insects hidden in Belfast's docklands to the falcons that make London's Shard their home, Stephen Moss reveals the unexpected oases which foster the crucial links in the chain that bind the natural world together.

Swallow and starling, puffin and peregrine, blue tit and blackcap. The words we use to name birds are some of the most lyrical and evocative in the English language. Through fascinating encounters with birds, and the rich cast of characters who came up with their names, Stephen Moss shows how these names reveal as much about ourselves and our relationship with the natural world as about the creatures they describe.

Naturalist Stephen Moss digs beneath the surface of some of our most popular Christmas carols in an ornithological celebration of the Festive Season. With brilliant anecdotes and insights, Stephen Moss weaves history, culture, bird behaviour and folklore into a compelling narrative for each species, tracing its fortunes over the past two centuries.

This is a very personal celebration of why the natural world matters to all of us, wherever we live. The book is nature writing at its finest, expressed through the natural history of one very special place.

No other bird is quite so ever-present and familiar, so embedded in our culture, as the robin. But how much do we really know about this bird? We follow its lifecycle from the time it enters the world as an egg, to the adult bird; and at the same time we trace the robin's relationship with us.