When Mike Tomkies moved to a remote cottage on the shores of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands of Scotland, he found a place which was to provide him with the most profound wilderness experience of his life. Accessible only by boat, the cottage he renamed 'Wildernesse' was to be his home for many years, which he shared with his beloved German Shepherd, Moobli.Centred on different landscape elements – loch, woodlands and mountains – Tomkies describes the whole cycle of nature through...

After giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies moved to Eilean Shona, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland.There he rebuilt an abandoned croft house and began a new way of life observing nature. He tracked foxes and stags, made friends with seals and taught an injured sparrow-hawk to hunt for itself. It was the indomitable spirit of this tiny bird that taught Tomkies what it tak...

"One man's search for peace and beauty in an increasingly frenetic world has never read so well or so evocatively." — Eifion Rees, Shooting Times & Country MagazineAfter giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies moved to Eilean Shona, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland. There he rebuilt an abandoned croft hou...

When Mike Tomkies moved to a remote cottage on the shores of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands of Scotland, he found a place which was to provide him with the most profound wilderness experience of his life. Accessible only by boat, the cottage he renamed 'Wildernesse' was to be his home for many years, which he shared with his beloved German Shepherd, Moobli. Centred on different landscape elements – loch, woodlands and mountains –Tomkies describes the whole cycle of nature through the sea...

After giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies found Eilean Shona, a remote island 'between earth and paradise' off the west coast of Scotland. There he rebuilt a rotting wooden crofthouse which sheep had used for shelter from the bitter Atlantic winds and began a new way of life, observing nature, that was to last to the present day. He tracked wildlife, stags, foxes, made friends with the seals...

This is the story of a man who achieved what thousands only dream of. He shed the pressures of urban life as an international journalist and exchanged it for solitude, self-sufficiency and new purpose. He emigrated to Canada, found a plot of rock, trees and cliffs in a remote part of the British Columbian coastline, and moved in with typewriter, tent and the barest necessities to build his dream cabin. How he eventually built his log cabin, learned to live off the sea, adjusted to and work...

Within days of arriving back from five years of studying bears, wolves and lynxes in Spain, he is up a wild cliff in Cornwall watching three peregrine falcon chicks from hatching to flying stage. We can follow his astounding adventures over the next ten years as he obsessively searches all through Britain for that elusive ‘small wild paradise’ so many of us would also like to find. He lives in, but finally loses, no less than six new homes in that time and the complications and reasons why...

Some seven years after abandoning the life of an international journalist for a life in the wilds, Mike Tomkies began a remarkable experiment, rearing the most ferocious animal to roam wild in Britain - the Scottish wildcat. The true wildcat is now an endangered species and only to be found in inaccessible parts of the Scottish mountains. It may look like a giant domestic tabby, but with its bright red tongue and vicious claws, it is a formidable and fearless opponent of mankind. It is jus...

Deep Country is Neil Ansell's account of five years spent alone in a hillside cottage in Wales.'I lived alone in this cottage for five years, summer and winter, with no transport, no phone. This is the story of those five years, where I lived and how I lived. It is the story of what it means to live in a place so remote that you may not see another soul for weeks on end. And it is the story of the hidden places that I came to call my own, and the wild crea...

Neil Ansell's THE LAST WILDERNESS is a mesmerising book on nature and solitude by a writer who has spent his lifetime taking solitary ventures into the wild. For any readers of the author's previous book, DEEP COUNTRY, Robert Macfarlane's THE OLD WAYS or William Atkins THE MOOR.Shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize**Shortlisted for the 2018 Highland Book Prize'Ansell has the rare skill of combining vividly the in...

An introductory guide to everything the serious falconer needs to know about training, handling, and flying raptors from the five family groups.Learn how to train birds of prey correctly and safely. Jemima Parry-Jones, owner and director of the International Centre for Birds of Prey, covers everything the serious falconer needs to know about the five family groups: eagles, hawks, falcons, buzzards and owls.You will learn about handling, training, and flying...

"This wonderful collection of wildlife encounters will make anyone want to pull on their boots and re-discover the world on our doorsteps."—Kate Humble, TV host & authorFor the last thirty years, naturalist John Lister-Kaye has taken the same circular walk from his home deep in a Scottish glen up to a small hill loch. Each day brings a new observation or an unexpected encounter—a fragile spider's web, an osprey struggling to lift a trout from the water or a woodcock...