The fewer birds there are, the more books about them, particularly of the literary kind. Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk swept all the prizes; and James Macdonald Lockhart has already won a £10,000 Royal Society of Literature Award for Non-Fiction to fund research for his debut. It is of the quest variety, recently popularised by William Fiennes, Horatio Clare, Mark Avery and others.
J.A. Baker, who wrote the one-hit Sixties wonder The Peregrine, is modern father of the genre.
Macdonald Lockhart describes his aim:
Fifteen birds of prey, 15 different landscapes. A journey in search of raptors, a journey through the birds and into their worlds. That is how I envisaged it. Beginning in the far north, in Orkney, and winding my way down to a river in Devon. A long journey south, clambering down this tall, spiny island, which is as vast and wondrous to me as any galaxy.
He is coy about his travel arrangements but seems mostly to have driven, then hiked and camped.
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