Orchard, Benedict Macdonald
Orchard, Benedict Macdonald
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Orchard

Author: Benedict Macdonald, Nicholas Gates

Narrator: Mike Grady

Unabridged: 7 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/20/2020


Synopsis

By the Wainwright-Conservation-Prize-winning author of Rebirding Spend a year in an orchard, celebrating its imperilled, overlooked abundance of life. England's ancient orchards, collaborations between people and nature, are sources of hope for the future. Protecting them promises a far richer England for the centuries to come, for wildlife and for us. As the seasons turn, a wealth of animals and plants are revealed: Bumble and solitary bees apartment-hunting in April; spotted flycatchers migrating in May; redstarts, hedgehogs and owls nesting in June; an explosion of life in the summer and the harvest and homespun cider-making in the autumn. And all throughout the year, the orchard’s human and animal inhabitants work together, creating one of the richest ecosystems left in Britain. Explore this unique habitat throughout the course of a year, and marvel at the beauty and strength of nature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sophy on July 15, 2021

A brilliant book about a genuinely organic, left to nature, unsullied apple and pear orchard in Herefordshire and all its natural inhabitants. The passion of the two nature writers for their subject shines through in their accounts of studying insects, birds and other varied creatures in the orchard......more

Goodreads review by Sanjuro on October 08, 2020

I read a lot of nature writing, because I enjoy escaping into the finer and lesser known details of the natural world; but - I find a lot of nature writing to be recycled versions of familiar tropes, so I seldom feel impressed by any new nature book I read. There are the classics, and then many char......more

Goodreads review by Colin on October 13, 2022

I’ve always been fascinated by orchards and can happily spend a lot of time wandering among fruit trees on visits to great gardens, so I couldn’t resist this book. The story of a year in an ancient Herefordshire cider and perry orchard, untouched by chemical fertilisers since 1930, it is both a love......more

Goodreads review by Sølvi on June 23, 2021

Found this useful as an agroforestry worker, we've spent the first half of the year grafting several thousand trees. It's really useful to get this year long frame of ecosystem reference to think about how we encourage that as the trees grow and as we send them out to new community orchards.......more

Goodreads review by Adam on October 18, 2020

This was a lovely book. Centred around a single Hereforshire orchard, the book details how the wildife of these increasingly rare locations changes over the course of a single year. As an expatriat living in the Middle East, books like this are a necessary (to me) life line that connects me back to......more


Quotes

Praise for Orchard ‘Enchanting’ Daily Mail ‘ … Orchard has much to offer in its observations of wildlife’ John Carey, Sunday Times ‘A new book from Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates, veterans of the BBC’s Springwatch series … moves lyrically and vividly through one calendar year in an old Herefordshire orchard … Particularly moving’ New Statesman ‘From spores to sparrowhawks, there is never a dull moment. Lyrically written, Orchard is a love-letter to its jumbled “magical chaos” and a shining example of the things that can be achieved when humans come to work in balance and in harmony with nature’ BBC Wildlife ‘From slug-hunting toads and snuffling hedgehogs to percussion-playing spiders, woodpecker architects and zombie hoverflies, this wonderful book weaves together fascinating stories of the wildlife that lives in an old organic orchard … Excellent … I would recommend Orchard wholeheartedly’ Kathy Bishop, The Seasonal Table, Countryfile magazine ‘This book looks at an ancient English orchard throughout the course of a year, focusing on the wide range of wildlife that it supports … writing with a lyrical richness that beautifully evokes this unique setting … The result is a book that can be enjoyed on a lot of different levels from professional conservationists, to the most casual of everyday birdwatchers. Passionate and moving, this is highly recommended’ Birdwatch magazine ‘A rich and textured account of a year in this neglected habitat’ Stephen Moss ‘Enjoy this precious habitat and all its glories via this coffee-table worthy book that offers food for thought’ RSPB magazine ‘This beautiful exploration of natural history is an elegy for a disappearing way of life … captivating’ The Garden magazine