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In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife - here, the swan. With his inimitable passion and vision, Jim relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.
- GenresNatureNatural History
64 pages, Hardcover
Published November 19, 2015
31 people want to read
About the author
Jim Crumley
60 books51 followersJim 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2018
"Her head was at my eye-level when she stood erect and I looked into her deep black eyes from a yard away. I spoke to her, I made the few swan noises I had learned to imitate. Occasionally, she grunted back. She stepped into the water's edge, sat in the shallows, and drank. Then, near enough for me to reach out and touch her, she grew still where she sat. Her eyelids flickered and drooped and finally closed. For ten minutes, she slept in my shadow.
I have always tried to be dispassionate, objective, in my dealings with wild-life, as matter of fact as nature itself. But I recognised the single emotion that was my response to the sleeping swan, and it was love."
This is a beautiful, eloquent biography of swan the author has known, told with tenderness in the absence of pity, in a tone that gives these swans all the complexity of human beings. The author's passion and respect for wildlife shines throughout, even when describing the wildest most competitive aspects of nature.
"But the heart of it is a story that unfolded - still unfolds - a few miles from my own doorstep. It concerns a pair of mute swans that live on a lake in Highland Perthshire. In all my travels, I have found nothing like them. But this is not the whole story. That story is as old as swans, and will outlive me by millennia."
The core of this book is the biography of an old pen and cob who lived on an almost inhospitable lock in Scotland that flooded and froze regularly, was home to foxes and otters, and presented the wildest of habitats to the stately swans. The author befriended these swans by feeding them over many years. "Swans this wild let you into only a certain portion of their lives. They give you intimate glances. But you can never have any part in the business of being a swan. You can offer them no more than the flung tribute of your admiring glance." He grew to respect the tenacity of the old cob in defending his territory, and the gentle determination of the old pen as her body began to succumb to old age. The spirit of this swan pierces through the account, she was the one who led her partner to trust the author and eat from his hand, she had a steadfastness and equality within the pair that made up for her deficit in size. Seeing these very human qualities in such a wild bird, the author conveys something spiritual. "Perhaps the first twist of the Celtic knot was fashioned by a swan-watcher." I feel that these particular animals have been brought to life, as if I knew them.
When the old pen becomes ill and is pushed out by a younger female, the author continues to feed her as her pair-bond begins to deteriorate. She behaves, right until the end, with the absence of despair that is remarkable in animals. She continues to live without self-pity or regret, as if she is somehow fulfilled in her swan life in a way that humans rarely are. "Any rational assessment must conclude that it is fair enough, nature sustaining nature, a fate fit for any of nature's creatures. But I came to know that swan better than any bird or animal I have ever encountered, and confronted by that tiny white pyre of feathers, what I felt is a kind of mourning." The author's feeling of loss is conveyed with a poignancy I have rarely seen elsewhere. This does not feel like a wild-life book, it feels as deeply personal as any memoir. And this line, more than anything is heart-wrenching, "standing on my own lochside, I have a question no human myth is equipped to answer: who cares for the soul of a swan?" The love the author shows for the pen is inspirational. If Crumley aimed to preserve the value of this brave old pen's life, he has succeeded in immortalising her. I will remember this beautiful account long after I have forgotten many, many other books.
For me, I did not feel that the succeeding sections, scenic and humorous descriptions of whooper swan watching worked as well. I wanted space and finally to grieve for the old pen. Although there were some interesting observations, which humanised the whooper swans in their own minor way, "Whooper swans are the most sociable of creatures, and any meeting with other groups or solitary travellers of their kind involves a group hug of open wings", this part paled in comparison. All the same, I enjoyed the observation that a black swan amongst a mixed flock looks for all the world like "a negative of a swan", and the inclusion of Marion Campbells' poem: "sounding out haunting notes, / The trumpets of an older chivalry". I can see Crumley's dedication as a nature-watcher but I can see that here is merely describing acquaintances as opposed to family. "I had been there about an hour in which all that had happened was the occasional rearrangement of the folds of a particular folded swan" Still, this work has made a great impression on me.
The Afterward is an unexpected recall to the high emotion of the old pen's biography. Years later, there is an update on the Perthshire lake which the old cob and pen have long since yielded to other pioneering wild swans. The terrain remains far from hospitable. "None have shown the same qualities of persistence, courage, and raw wildness as the two birds whose story is told here, birds I only ever knew as the old cob and the old pen, the latter a bird that rather got under my skin in a way that no wild creature has ever done before or since." In a final triumph of life, a final footnote of dedication, a new pair of wans have achieved the impossible. "Under the dense green midsummer reed bed's cloak the swans had hatched a secret cygnet." A delicate new life in the harshest of worlds, but a swan's life has all the heritage to succeed against the odds. It still gives me a little jolt to think of the bold young cygnet flying away after surviving the wilderness.
I have always tried to be dispassionate, objective, in my dealings with wild-life, as matter of fact as nature itself. But I recognised the single emotion that was my response to the sleeping swan, and it was love."
This is a beautiful, eloquent biography of swan the author has known, told with tenderness in the absence of pity, in a tone that gives these swans all the complexity of human beings. The author's passion and respect for wildlife shines throughout, even when describing the wildest most competitive aspects of nature.
"But the heart of it is a story that unfolded - still unfolds - a few miles from my own doorstep. It concerns a pair of mute swans that live on a lake in Highland Perthshire. In all my travels, I have found nothing like them. But this is not the whole story. That story is as old as swans, and will outlive me by millennia."
The core of this book is the biography of an old pen and cob who lived on an almost inhospitable lock in Scotland that flooded and froze regularly, was home to foxes and otters, and presented the wildest of habitats to the stately swans. The author befriended these swans by feeding them over many years. "Swans this wild let you into only a certain portion of their lives. They give you intimate glances. But you can never have any part in the business of being a swan. You can offer them no more than the flung tribute of your admiring glance." He grew to respect the tenacity of the old cob in defending his territory, and the gentle determination of the old pen as her body began to succumb to old age. The spirit of this swan pierces through the account, she was the one who led her partner to trust the author and eat from his hand, she had a steadfastness and equality within the pair that made up for her deficit in size. Seeing these very human qualities in such a wild bird, the author conveys something spiritual. "Perhaps the first twist of the Celtic knot was fashioned by a swan-watcher." I feel that these particular animals have been brought to life, as if I knew them.
When the old pen becomes ill and is pushed out by a younger female, the author continues to feed her as her pair-bond begins to deteriorate. She behaves, right until the end, with the absence of despair that is remarkable in animals. She continues to live without self-pity or regret, as if she is somehow fulfilled in her swan life in a way that humans rarely are. "Any rational assessment must conclude that it is fair enough, nature sustaining nature, a fate fit for any of nature's creatures. But I came to know that swan better than any bird or animal I have ever encountered, and confronted by that tiny white pyre of feathers, what I felt is a kind of mourning." The author's feeling of loss is conveyed with a poignancy I have rarely seen elsewhere. This does not feel like a wild-life book, it feels as deeply personal as any memoir. And this line, more than anything is heart-wrenching, "standing on my own lochside, I have a question no human myth is equipped to answer: who cares for the soul of a swan?" The love the author shows for the pen is inspirational. If Crumley aimed to preserve the value of this brave old pen's life, he has succeeded in immortalising her. I will remember this beautiful account long after I have forgotten many, many other books.
For me, I did not feel that the succeeding sections, scenic and humorous descriptions of whooper swan watching worked as well. I wanted space and finally to grieve for the old pen. Although there were some interesting observations, which humanised the whooper swans in their own minor way, "Whooper swans are the most sociable of creatures, and any meeting with other groups or solitary travellers of their kind involves a group hug of open wings", this part paled in comparison. All the same, I enjoyed the observation that a black swan amongst a mixed flock looks for all the world like "a negative of a swan", and the inclusion of Marion Campbells' poem: "sounding out haunting notes, / The trumpets of an older chivalry". I can see Crumley's dedication as a nature-watcher but I can see that here is merely describing acquaintances as opposed to family. "I had been there about an hour in which all that had happened was the occasional rearrangement of the folds of a particular folded swan" Still, this work has made a great impression on me.
The Afterward is an unexpected recall to the high emotion of the old pen's biography. Years later, there is an update on the Perthshire lake which the old cob and pen have long since yielded to other pioneering wild swans. The terrain remains far from hospitable. "None have shown the same qualities of persistence, courage, and raw wildness as the two birds whose story is told here, birds I only ever knew as the old cob and the old pen, the latter a bird that rather got under my skin in a way that no wild creature has ever done before or since." In a final triumph of life, a final footnote of dedication, a new pair of wans have achieved the impossible. "Under the dense green midsummer reed bed's cloak the swans had hatched a secret cygnet." A delicate new life in the harshest of worlds, but a swan's life has all the heritage to succeed against the odds. It still gives me a little jolt to think of the bold young cygnet flying away after surviving the wilderness.
March 10, 2017
The latest volume of Crumley's "Encounters in the wild" series that I have read. 5 stars do not do the book justice. It is superb and heart warming, almost having me in tears at the beauty of the subject matter, the writing, and the author's philosophy. I really can't recommend higher.
January 28, 2025
A beautiful book. A little hardback gem with an evocative cover painting of a Highland loch backed by autumnal hills. The nature writing is sensitive, personal and acutely observed, often reading as poetry without ever becoming difficult or obscure. The core of this observational book is the tale of a pair of swans defying the elements in a very particular place the author knows so well. Moving, informative, entertaining and simply wonderful.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews