The Peregrine

The last book I read in 2020 was also the best.

I had started winter with a string of books read by David Attenborough. I picked this up just to keep listening to Attenborough’s voice, and based on his recommendation.

The natural world is overwhelming in its complexity. In trying to really see it I can get lost in the endless links it creates. It’s nice to pull on the thread of a single species and tease things out from there.

This book looks at the titular bird. It’s rendered as an intimate portrait, and is the majority of what we focus on here.

The author themselves pursues them over the hills, but is barely defined. He is a tripod spot, from where we set up our observing camera. The lens is hardly ever turned back on him, or really much of humanity around the landscape.

The writing is deep and rich in its description. Containing almost a ludicrous evocative beauty.

My favourite:

A flock of starlings rose in front of him, and flew south as fast as they could. The hawk rushed over and beyond them in a second. They seemed to flick back beneath him as though they had never moved. He flowed across the dazzling sky in one great slash of light, and flared out into the darkness of the trees. I did not see him again, but long after he had gone the bird-clouds rose and fell above the southern skyline, like the calm drift of smoke above the rage and fire of battle

Similar to The Fat Years, the book ends with a good hour of literary criticism about what you just listened to. I could have probably done without that, but it’s a book I’ll keep going back to.