Watching Wildlife

by Jim Crumley

“If you have been still enough for long enough, your eyes will have attuned and begun to read the seasurge fluently, so you recognize the blunt curve and flourished tail of a diving otter. Home your eyes in on that portion of the sea, permit nothing else to move, and you will see the otter eel-catching, resurfacing.” It is a special privilege and a richly rewarding experience to observe a wild animal hunting, interacting with its young or its mate, exploring its habitat, or escaping a predator. To watch wildlife, it’s essential not only to learn an animal’s ways, the times and places you may find it, but also to station yourself, focus, and wait. The experience depends on your stillness, silence, and full attention, watching and listening with minimal movement so that your presence is not sensed. With decades of close observation of wild animals and birds, Jim Crumley has found himself up close and personal with many of our most elusive creatures, studying their movements, noting details, and offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. Here, he draws us into his magical world, showing how we can learn to watch wildlife well.

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2024

About the author

Jim Crumley is a Scottish nature writer with almost 20 books to his name, mostly on the landscape and wildlife of Scotland. He is renowned for his style - passionate, inspiring, visionary, sensitive, majestic - no work of his should be missed. He is also a columnist and presenter of radio programmes.

He has also received the accolade of '...the best nature writer now working in Great Britain...' from David Craig in the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Reviews

[Hank Hoeft · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in grade school and high school, I loved to go on solitary nature walks, out in the borderland between the Mohave and Sonoran Deserts, and out in the ponderosa pine forests of northern Arizona. I used to gain an immense sense of peace and well-being on those sojourns. I am reminded of those hikes now when I read Jim Crumley’s short but lyrical Watching Wildlife. The profound sense of connectedness Crumley feels to the wilds of Scotland is the same connectedness I felt on those long-ago walks in Southwest desert and pine forest.

But even though I thoroughly enjoyed reading the highly lyrical Watching Wildlife and reliving the childhood memories it brought back, that was all total serendipity, and not why I checked it out from the local college library in the first place. No, I picked the book up because of a blurb on the front cover by Malachy Tallack: “The best guide I know to the natural world.” Other blurbs on the rear cover led me to believe the book was a concise “how to” guide to nature watching. But if it is, it’s a guide that teaches by example and anecdote, not by giving lists of things to do and not do. Crumley’s book is a how-to book on nature observation the same way the books of Natalie Goldberg or Anne Lamott are how-to books on writing. If I had known Jim Crumley is also a poet, I maybe would have had a better idea of what to expect. As it is, the book is less about how to nature watch, and more about why to do it.

P,S.: Watching Wildlife is only 149 pages long, but the last 5 pages do comprise a very short chapter on tips for successful nature watching. When I read those final pages, I was pleased to see his advice pretty much matched (and expounded slightly on) what I used to tell my own children when nature watching: be still, be silent, be patient. And be there. If one does that, then one can have the same soul-satisfying experiences Crumley describes so well in his slim volume.

[Nathan Fisher]

I waited impatiently for this to be released for some time. It was a slimmer volume than I'd hoped, and as does sometimes happen with Crumley's books, a lot of what appears here you will have read before in his other books, if you've read a lot of them. It isn't a "how to" about watching wildlife per se; instead it offers up vignettes about encounters with a selection of species, from beaver and otter to golden eagle and skylark, set out in slim chapters.

Not all of this was familiar to me, and I'd recommend purchasing it to any fan of Jim Crumley and anyone with an interest in seeing wildlife. Just be prepared to reread passages and whole stories you may have read in earlier works. In particular, the white tailed eagle chapter is pretty much a super-condensed summary of his 2014 book The Eagle's Way.

[Ivan Monckton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new slim volume from one of my favourite nature writers, Jim Crumley, about HIS watching of wildlife in Scotland, which could be the readers’ watching with enough calm, silence and patience! Seven 20 page chapters covering Golden Eagle, Otter, Beaver,Badger, Barn Owl, Skylark, and Sea Eagle. Lovely.

[Claire Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful wee book. Made me want to get up into the Angus Glens and sat a while.

[Dave Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great vivid details and very relaxing.

[Kyri Freeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a little bit of a clip show from his other books, with limited new material.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and inspiring

[Amy]

"We read too many field guides, and field guides deal in generalities, helping us to identify but not to understand."

[Bob Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful nature writing

Jim Crumley continues to delight and enthral! Having read most of Jim's books this one does not disappoint especially the chapter on the barn owl. Power to your elbow, Jim, and especially your writing hand. Like me you're in the winter of your years but don't stop, please.