HIGHLAND WILDLIFE

By Richard Perry

Minor spotting to top edge otherwise very good in price-clipped dust-wrapper.

(1948) 1979 revised and augmented edition. 8vo (140 x 223mm). Pp202. B/w photograph plates. Black boards, spine titled in gilt.

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"'One March day there were three pairs of Whooper swans on the lochan... At my coming they swam towards each other and, on meeting; both birds of each pair rose up and beat and spread their wings on the water, while sounding a fanfare of trumpeting; after which each cob and pen trumpeted to its mate, with dipping heads almost touching.' Richard Perry inaugurated in the 'thirties a new era of nature study based on field observation. The techniques he pioneered are now taken for granted; but it was then considered revolutionary to spend a year or even longer in the same spot observing the wildlife. He spent in all seventeen years in upper Speyside and so his work on the wildlife of the region is meticulous and his love for the countryside heart-felt. Highland Wildlife is an extensively revised, augmented and up-dated edition of In the High Grampians, which has long been unavailable. This new book includes new chapters on Deer, Dragonflies, Birds of Prey, Dippers and some of the summer-resident waders. It captures some of the best of Perry's writing which as ever combines accurate scientific observation with beautiful descriptive powers. Nearly all the birds and beasts of the region are dealt with at length. No one who is interested in the natural history of this unique corner of Scotland should miss the chance to read this book. The hours spent watching in the hills and by the lochans come vividly to life. Above all the grandeur of the scenery pervades the whole. To read Perry's descriptions is to be carried to the region itself. 'Shortly before I reached the summit an eagle circled overhead... a little way down on to the moss I was soon brought up short by a snowfield into which I plunged my long crook without striking bottom. Snow Buntings, appearing as large as jackdaws in the white mist, hopped about the snowfield; three ptarmigan - snowy white arctic birds with black primaries and seemingly the size of glaucous gulls - squatted at its edge.' This is how Perry describes the Highland winter. Each of the seasons is as feelingly evoked." (Publisher's blurb).

Contents include:- Preface; Introduction; A traditional winter; Deer in the snow; Encounters with stags; The rock and its birds of prey; Ravens and jackdaws on the rock; Summer and winter visitors to Badenoch; Crossbills in larch grove and pinewood; Inhabitants of the planted woods; Birds of the old pine forest; Bees on the moors; Dragonflies in the pinewood and peat-bog; The beautiful aeshnas; The dance of the Whooper swans; A winter concentration of dippers; Dippers in song and displaying; Wagtails on the Spey; The return of the greenshank and other waders; Sandpipers and young curlew; Lapwings on the moors and in the glens; Oystercatchers on the Spey beaches; Golden plover and dotterel on the high tops; The way to the Cairngorms; Spring on the Cairngorms; Summer on the Cairngorms; The miracle of the snow bunting; The snow bunting again; Autumn and winter on the Cairngorms; Reindeer in the Cairngorms.