One night Mark Cocker followed the roiling, deafening flock of rooks and
jackdaws which regularly passed over his Norfolk home on their way to
roost in the Yare valley. From the moment he watched the multitudes
blossom as a mysterious dark flower above the night woods, these
gloriously commonplace birds were unsheathed entirely from their
ordinariness. They became for Cocker a fixation and a way of life.
Cocker goes in search of them, journeying from the cavernous, deadened
heartland of South England to the hills of Dumfriesshire, experiencing
spectacular failures alongside magical successes and epiphanies. Step by
step he uncovers the complexities of the birds' inner lives, the
unforeseen richness hidden in the raucous crow song he calls 'our
landscape made audible'. Crow Country is a prose poem in a long
tradition of English pastoral writing.
It is also a reminder
that 'Crow Country' is not 'ours': it is a landscape which we cohabit
with thousands of other species, and these richly complex fellowships
cannot be valued too highly.
Crow Country - Mark Cocker
- Product Code:New
- Availability:In Stock
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£9.99