This book is like a literary menagerie of natural curiosities, MacDonald muses about habitat change, the habits of birds, human encounters with animals. Mushrooms, hedgerow, starlings, deer, falcons, goats, all manner of creatures and flora abound in these pages. It’s a calm sort of book (except for the essays focused on climate change and habitat loss of course), little urgency to it, a collection of recollections tinged with both melancholy and hope. I occasionally found myself bored, my mind wandering, but other times I’d be enraptured. It certainly made me want to go through life paying more attention to the nature that surrounds us.