Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back - The NEW Illustrated Guide

By Author / Illustrator

Isabella Tree, Angela Harding

Genre

Environment

Age range(s)

Publisher

Pan Macmillan

ISBN

9781529092844

Format

Hardback

Published

07-03-2024

Synopsis

Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back - An Illustrated Guide is a stunningly beautiful gift book written by Isabella Tree, which tells the story of the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. It is illustrated in full colour with lino prints and watercolours by Angela Harding (A Year Unfolding) and photographs from Knepp.

Knepp is now home to some of the rarest and most beautiful creatures in the UK, including nightingales, kingfishers, turtle doves and peregrine falcons, hazel dormice and harvest mice, scarce chaser dragonflies and purple emperor butterflies. The sheer abundance of life is staggering, too. When you walk out into the scrubland on an early spring morning, the sound of birdsong is so loud it feels like it's vibrating in your lungs. This is the story of Knepp, and a guide telling you how to bring wildlife back where you live.

Includes timelines, an indepth look at rewilding, spotlight features about native animals including species that have returned and thrive - butterflies, bats, owls and beetles. There are accessible in-garden activities to 're-wild' your own spaces and the book encourages you to slow down and observe the natural world around you, understand the connections between species and habitats, and the huge potential for life right on your doorstep.

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Reviews

Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back - An Illustrated Guide tells the story of the Knepp Estate in West Sussex and how the owners have allowed nature to return, bringing wildlife back to the estate. Now home to an abundance of creatures, including many rare species, the estate shows the importance- and benefits of rewilding.

Described as 'a re-imagining of Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm', Wilding is both fascinating and beautiful. Watercolours and lino prints by Angela Harding adorn every page, offering a sense of the wonders this endeavour has brought about. A timeline at the beginning of the book outlines the events from the creation of the estate in William the Conqueror's time through the changes of the Industrial Revolution, the Second World War, intensive farming and the family's decision to stop farming and allow nature to thrive.

From this point, the book is a celebration of the new landscape and its inhabitants with careful explanation of how this was achieved and ideas for how to rewild your own space. Although pitched at younger readers, this book is an absolutely absorbing read for anyone. Both of my parents, my husband, my neighbour, my son and his girlfriend were all drawn to this book, spending time getting lost in its pages and exclaiming in delight at the illustrations and pictures of the changes and the beauties of nature.

It is a book which makes you pause and ponder the possibilities for your own environment, leaving you full of hope for the future.

9+ 96 pages