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A week or so ago friend gave me two books about wild fowling by Peter Scott and both published by Country Life. I've now read them from cover to cover and travelled to Ireland, Scotland, Hungary and England, to ponds, lakes, rivers estuaries and the foreshore. Now I have no desire to spend all night hunkered down on the foreshore in the tidal mud and be at the mercy of the weather but reading them I was well and truly transported there in my imagination.
Now both of the books are going to be passed on to a friend who is not only a shooter but a wildfowler too, he goes down to the marshes on The Wash to do his wildfowling so maybe, just maybe, reading the books will inspire him to greater things.
The paintings and drawings by the author are a treat too and very, very atmospheric. I don't think he is up there with 'BB', aka Denys Watkins-Pitchford, in the writing or illustrating stakes but these are two great volumes and anyone who has experience the magic of the washes or the foreshore at night or at dawn will love them.
Later in life Sir Peter Scott established the Slimbridge Reserve and I believe he gave up shooting to run his bird reserve and paint.
Fair play to him the man enjoyed the best of both worlds. I'll settle for enjoying both books.
