What do you think?
Rate this book
The Flight of the Osprey
Not since World War I have ospreys been seen in England. Now, however, the magnificent birds are beginning to reclaim their ancient territories. But as Isagair, a two-year-old osprey, soon discovers, survival is still quite difficult. The young bird becomes trapped in a poacher's net and faces a slow death.
Help comes from Nicola Frayle, who, at the age of thirty-seven, has been struggling to accept the early death of her husband. When she discovers the entangled bird, Nicola also begins to find a new sense of purpose, despite the many problems involved in caring for the untamed bird.
Isagair soon recovers and returns the kindness when he begins hunting for food from a neighbor's trout fishery. Nicola finds a friend in fishery owner Martin Collier, himself coming to terms with a troubled past. But for Nicola and Martin - and Isagair, too - many hurdles lie ahead in this magnificently told story, evoking the beauty and wonder of the world in which we live.
Help comes from Nicola Frayle, who, at the age of thirty-seven, has been struggling to accept the early death of her husband. When she discovers the entangled bird, Nicola also begins to find a new sense of purpose, despite the many problems involved in caring for the untamed bird.
Isagair soon recovers and returns the kindness when he begins hunting for food from a neighbor's trout fishery. Nicola finds a friend in fishery owner Martin Collier, himself coming to terms with a troubled past. But for Nicola and Martin - and Isagair, too - many hurdles lie ahead in this magnificently told story, evoking the beauty and wonder of the world in which we live.
175 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Ewan Clarkson
36 books3 followersClarkson was born in Workington on 23 January 1929. He was educated at Altrincham Grammar School and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps between 1947-49.
His first book was Break for Freedom, also published in the United States as Syla, the Mink (1968), telling the story of a mink escaping from a fur farm in Devon, and showing the influence of Henry Williamson's stories about Devon wildlife. Clarkson gave a particular focus to the impact of man's activities on nature, a theme he developed in subsequent works, following Break for Freedom with Halic, the Story of a Grey Seal in 1970, and a number of other novels and non-fiction wildlife books. He was an early critic of the use of pesticides and several of his works explore the negative effects on the environment of intensive farming methods.
Clarkson's books often appeared on both adults' and children's lists, and he stated that education was one of the main purposes of his writing. Clarkson also wrote several books on animals aimed specifically at younger children, as well as many magazine articles about angling: an accomplished fisherman, he was regarded as a pioneer of saltwater fly fishing techniques.
Clarkson, who lived in Newton Abbot, died on 19 April 2010.
Source: Wikipedia
His first book was Break for Freedom, also published in the United States as Syla, the Mink (1968), telling the story of a mink escaping from a fur farm in Devon, and showing the influence of Henry Williamson's stories about Devon wildlife. Clarkson gave a particular focus to the impact of man's activities on nature, a theme he developed in subsequent works, following Break for Freedom with Halic, the Story of a Grey Seal in 1970, and a number of other novels and non-fiction wildlife books. He was an early critic of the use of pesticides and several of his works explore the negative effects on the environment of intensive farming methods.
Clarkson's books often appeared on both adults' and children's lists, and he stated that education was one of the main purposes of his writing. Clarkson also wrote several books on animals aimed specifically at younger children, as well as many magazine articles about angling: an accomplished fisherman, he was regarded as a pioneer of saltwater fly fishing techniques.
Clarkson, who lived in Newton Abbot, died on 19 April 2010.
Source: Wikipedia
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2025
Ah, Ewan Clarkson: the author I always turn to when I want pretty descriptions without a whole lot of bother about the story.
And he holds true to form in this one, as the ‘story’ (so to speak) is very meandering and practically at the point of nonexistence. The characters are hardly there at all-- kind of just people we follow and through whose eyes we get to marvel at the beautiful landscapes they inhabit.
Sadly, this book was less about the osprey Iasgair and more about how he influenced the lives of the people around him, in particular the two main characters-- Martin and Nicola. Both of whom, I am just going to state for the record, are pretty freaking boring.
Nicola, in particular, manages to get on my nerves. I didn’t start off with a super high opinion of her simply because of how she was described, and it kind of just went downhill from there. I mean sure, she seems nice enough, but she is not someone I would want to be close with-- especially not after witnessing how she is about her late husband. Neglecting his tools, his things-- pretty much everything that was important to him in his life (almost making fun of it, even!) and then, when she has the opportunity for a new romance with Martin, suddenly making such a big deal of her dead husband. If he was so important, she’d have honored his memory more by putting more stock in the things which mattered to him, instead of openly neglecting them.
Martin is somewhat nicer and easier to understand. Unfortunately, he tends to fall under that category of nice but dull. Great to hang out with, would take with on a nature walk, but otherwise not much going on there.
The only other characters we see much of in this little book, Mary and Paul, are not all that much to talk about either. Mary is a conniving schemer and far too fond of making gossip and matchmaking and controlling her husband. And Paul just lets it all slide. He’s barely even there-- it’s rather like he clocked out a long time ago, and his whole attitude to life is now ‘so long as you let me go fishing, anything you say dear’.
Mr. Clarkson got all of the osprey bit (which is what I thought would constitute most of the book-- as the badger did in The Badgers of Summercombe and Syla did in Break for Freedom) out of the way within the first few chapters, and then very quickly morphed what was gearing up to be a naturalistic foray into the life of an osprey into a non-story about two middle-aged people with hardly any barriers to speak of trying and somehow failing to get together in the biblical sense. I never thought a story ostensibly about a fish hawk could turn out in such a way. It seriously could have been done once they released the osprey-- I know I wouldn’t have been disappointed with that. But nope. Had to have more of the awkward romance, because suddenly, that is the focal point of the entire endeavor.
And that is pretty much this book in a nutshell.
I think, what Mr. Clarkson wanted to do, was write a story about a tragedy befalling a great and rare bird, and illustrate how from that tragedy people can be brought closer together (or together at all, seeing as Martin and Nicola didn’t know each other at all). But he kind of failed at it. I believe, given his success with the phenomenal Callinish, such an idea would have been better handled/carried out by an author like William Horwood. In short, Ewan Clarkson really should stick to just writing naturalistic novels, and do his best to leave the human element out of it-- it is decidedly not his strong point.
And he holds true to form in this one, as the ‘story’ (so to speak) is very meandering and practically at the point of nonexistence. The characters are hardly there at all-- kind of just people we follow and through whose eyes we get to marvel at the beautiful landscapes they inhabit.
Sadly, this book was less about the osprey Iasgair and more about how he influenced the lives of the people around him, in particular the two main characters-- Martin and Nicola. Both of whom, I am just going to state for the record, are pretty freaking boring.
Nicola, in particular, manages to get on my nerves. I didn’t start off with a super high opinion of her simply because of how she was described, and it kind of just went downhill from there. I mean sure, she seems nice enough, but she is not someone I would want to be close with-- especially not after witnessing how she is about her late husband. Neglecting his tools, his things-- pretty much everything that was important to him in his life (almost making fun of it, even!) and then, when she has the opportunity for a new romance with Martin, suddenly making such a big deal of her dead husband. If he was so important, she’d have honored his memory more by putting more stock in the things which mattered to him, instead of openly neglecting them.
Martin is somewhat nicer and easier to understand. Unfortunately, he tends to fall under that category of nice but dull. Great to hang out with, would take with on a nature walk, but otherwise not much going on there.
The only other characters we see much of in this little book, Mary and Paul, are not all that much to talk about either. Mary is a conniving schemer and far too fond of making gossip and matchmaking and controlling her husband. And Paul just lets it all slide. He’s barely even there-- it’s rather like he clocked out a long time ago, and his whole attitude to life is now ‘so long as you let me go fishing, anything you say dear’.
Mr. Clarkson got all of the osprey bit (which is what I thought would constitute most of the book-- as the badger did in The Badgers of Summercombe and Syla did in Break for Freedom) out of the way within the first few chapters, and then very quickly morphed what was gearing up to be a naturalistic foray into the life of an osprey into a non-story about two middle-aged people with hardly any barriers to speak of trying and somehow failing to get together in the biblical sense. I never thought a story ostensibly about a fish hawk could turn out in such a way. It seriously could have been done once they released the osprey-- I know I wouldn’t have been disappointed with that. But nope. Had to have more of the awkward romance, because suddenly, that is the focal point of the entire endeavor.
And that is pretty much this book in a nutshell.
I think, what Mr. Clarkson wanted to do, was write a story about a tragedy befalling a great and rare bird, and illustrate how from that tragedy people can be brought closer together (or together at all, seeing as Martin and Nicola didn’t know each other at all). But he kind of failed at it. I believe, given his success with the phenomenal Callinish, such an idea would have been better handled/carried out by an author like William Horwood. In short, Ewan Clarkson really should stick to just writing naturalistic novels, and do his best to leave the human element out of it-- it is decidedly not his strong point.
August 23, 2012
An enchanting tale of a widow who nurses an injured osprey back to health in Britain.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews