Jim Crumley

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. “The moon climbed high above the trees beyond the far side of the field, contriving a night of raw, primitive beauty out of the still-lingering wisps of mist, the pale, tumbling curves of field, the parallel inked-in blue-black curves of the hedges, the quiet and surprisingly pale shades of the distant firth. Tawny owls stabbed at the darkness with sharp, two-syllable shrieks. Then there was a hare, far down the field. It ran easily out into the moonlight from the hedge on the far side and at once it was partnered in dance by its own giant shadow.”

A lyrical and personal account of Jim Crumley’s lifelong quest to find harmony in nature and to hold nature at the centre of his every thought and action as he celebrates our precious planet. Renowned nature writer Jim Crumley draws on more than six decades of immersion in wild landscapes to explore the profound harmony at the heart of the natural world—and why it matters now more than ever. With the lyrical clarity and passionate advocacy that have made him Scotland’s foremost nature commentator, Crumley weaves together close observation, personal encounters, and ecological insight to reveal nature as a vast, interconnected symphony. He argues that our survival depends on relearning how to listen to the land, to recognise our place within the great orchestration of life rather than apart from it. Through evocative prose built on his expertise and care, Crumley urges us to defend the beauty and balance of the living world, offering both a celebration and a clarion call. Symphonic is a vital testament from a writer whose life’s work is a passionate defence and celebration of nature’s enduring—and endangered—harmony.

New and updated edition. In 1743, according to legend, the last wolf in Scotland was killed by a huntsman near Inverness. Long regarded in folk takes and history as a slayer of babies, a robber of graves, a devourer of battlefield dead, its extinction was widely celebrated. But since then, deer have multiplied, destroying the vegetation on which an array of wildlife depends, and it is clear that the entire Highland ecosystem has been thrown off balance by the elimination of a top predator. Jim Crumley believes the old stories are pure fiction – a distortion of reality which prevents people from thinking rationally about the huge benefits wolves could bring. With reference to wolves in other cultures and places, from the south-west of England to Scandinavia and North America, this is a passionate polemic which argues for the return of the wolf to heal the damaged land.