A review by nohoperadio
Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other by James Aldred

3.75

My standards for nature writing are quite simple: if the author is knowledgeable and is invested in the lives they’re documenting as lives and not as a metaphor for their dead dad or whatever, I’ll probably be entertained. This book meets both criteria passably enough. Not that the author is absent from the text: James Aldred is a wildlife cameraman and this is presented as a diary of his half-year making a film that follows a Goshawk pair (plus some other critters) in the New Forest through the breeding season, and much of the book concerns the nitty-gritty of trying to study animals in a way that’s minimally disruptive. This is not easy to do because most animals are naturally wary of raising young in a place where a huge ape keeps showing up to watch. Aldred’s project sounds like a massive pain in the ass and I respect it.