Osprey

In Osprey, the latestbook in Little Toller’s acclaimed monograph series, the writer and naturalistJohn Lister-Kaye tells a story of practical conservation with a keen eye and apoet’s ear, with an important bird at its heart – the osprey. For thousands of years theosprey nested widely across Britain, returning each spring from West Africa tobreed. But in the nineteenth century they were driven to extinction by eggcollecting and the systematic persecution of birds of prey on shooting estates.

But since the 1950s ospreys have slowly returned. In 2019 John Lister-Kaye anda team of young naturalist-rangers at the Aigas Field Centre west of Invernessset up a single old telegraph pole and wove a nest of sticks at its top, andwaited. In Osprey, ListerKaye records the nature around the loch as he waits for the ospreys in quietand always rapt anticipation, sometimes with frustration, but always with hope,as finally the birds come to nest.

In his eightieth year Lister-Kaye brings alifetime of nature and stories to Osprey, a captivating, entertainingaccount of the slow healing of landscapes and a life lived in the hope that thewild will return.