Mark Cocker

In a single twelve-month cycle of daily writings Mark Cocker explores his relationship to the East Anglian landscape. Characterised by close observation of nature and all the living things around him, he writes with a depth of experience and a profound awareness of seasonal change and, more alarmingly, a result of the changing climate.

One night Mark Cocker followed the flock of rooks and jackdaws which regularly passed over his Norfolk home on their way to roost in the Yare valley. Step by step he uncovers the complexities of the birds' inner lives, the unforeseen richness hidden in the raucous crow song he calls 'our landscape made audible'. The result is a prose poem describing a landscape which we cohabit with thousands of other species, and these richly complex fellowships cannot be valued too highly.

Swifts are among the most extraordinary of all birds. Their migrations span continents and their twelve-week stopover, when they pause to breed in European rooftops, is the very definition of summer. They may nest in our homes but much about their lives passes over our heads. No birds are more wreathed in mystery. Captivated, Mark Cocker sets out to capture their essence.

Over the course of one day in midsummer he devotes himself to his beloved black birds as they spiral overhead. Yet this is also a book about so much more. Swifts are a prism through which Cocker explores the profound interconnections of the whole biosphere.

Drawing deeply on science, history, literature and a lifetime of close observation, One Midsummer's Day is a dazzling and wide-ranging celebration of all life on Earth by one of our greatest nature writers.