Mark Cocker is the naturalist writer of the moment, with birds his special subject. His previous book, Birds and People, was a tour de force, taking the birds of the entire world as its subject. Craig Brown described it as ‘the sort of masterpiece that comes along only once or twice a decade’.
Expectations could not be higher. Claxton is a selection from his journalism for the Guardian and other publications, written since he moved to Claxton village, southeast of Norwich, 12 years ago. The 140 entries are arranged in 12 chronological chapters to form a naturalist’s journal of a Claxton year. Many have been radically revised so that of his eight books this ‘has taken the longest to write’. He regards it as ‘very much more than a collection of journalism’, although journalists would surely deplore the distinction.
That ‘there is nothing truly special’ about Claxton is the point. He opens with a quotation from Henry Thoreau of Walden fame: ‘I wonder that I ever get five miles on my way, the walk is so crowded with events and phenomena.’ Cocker’s mission is to open our eyes to this truth. One of his entries is posted from Greece; it confirms that un-special Claxton proves there is no need of exotic travel to be astonished: ‘To do things routinely, to take the same walk time after time, is not to see the same view over and over.’
In a land blessed with four seasons this is particularly true. Winter is barren of insects, whereas in summer and autumn the contents of his moth trap add a special ‘excitement to moth day (Saturday mornings)’. One of his constant themes is that birds and their eye-catching like are merely the most ‘charismatic product’ of an ecosystem: ‘The real engine room of biodiversity is a blend of the vegetation and the bio-luxuriance of its invertebrate populations.
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