Lakeland Wild

The Lake District may be one of our busiest national parks and contested landscapes, yet within its boundaries, it’s still possible to escape the crowds and find habitats and wildlife relatively undisturbed by our ever-encroaching presence. In Lakeland Wild, Jim Crumley seeks out these hidden places and waits, still, alert, noting his impressions as he turns his long-experienced nature-writer’s eye to these surroundings. The result is an intimate account of peregrines, eagles, swans, swallows and the wrens that shelter in the crevices of ancient stone walls. He writes of badgers and otters, of foxes prowling between stands of oak, rowan, yew, hawthorn and larch. He finds himself in Ullswater, at Angle Tarn, High Rigg and Brother’s Water, following in the footsteps of the Romantics. Seeing how human activity has shaped and often scarred the Cumbrian fells and lakes, he nevertheless finds much that is beautiful, and he celebrates it in his most sublime writing yet.