To emphasise a point she is making, Esther Woolfson quotes a Nobel Prize-winning doctor: “We know nothing about life on this planet.” It is an opinion that might make one stop and ponder. Woolfson knows a great deal about wildlife, however, especially in and around her home in the Scottish city of Aberdeen. For years she has studied the life of many ordinary creatures – gulls, starlings, pigeons, foxes – often from her kitchen window. She worries what the future may hold for many of them. She now considers starlings to be an endangered species, for example: in the past 30 years their number has declined by more than 60 per cent. We are, Woolfson says, surrounded by wonderful wildlife if we’d only stop to look and wonder – butterflies, badgers, otters, hares, all of them within the ambit of the city lights. She takes us gently through the four seasons, wanting us to value the wildlife we take for granted. This is a warm-hearted read that may make us sit up and appreciate the many lovely creatures we stand to lose.
