Crummock Water, Cumbria Credit: Rosamund Macfarlane
Over the past few years, the genre of 'nature writing' has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under pressure. Robert Macfarlane, from the Faculty of English, believes that writers have played, and continue to play, a central role in conservation by engaging our hearts and our minds. Whenever I ask professional conservationists what first inspired them to get involved in the protection of the environment, they invariably mention either a book or a place." - —Dr Robert Macfarlane Over the past few years, the genre of 'nature writing' has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under pressure. Robert Macfarlane, from the Faculty of English, believes that writers have played, and continue to play, a central role in conservation by engaging our hearts and our minds. Last November a new word - "scrattling" - emerged briefly into the world. The journalist Mark Cocker, a regular contributor to The Guardian 's Country Diary column, coined it to describe the sound made by starlings settling down to roost overnight in his roof in rural Norfolk. Cocker talks about the wild "excess of energy" in the arching movements of a flock of starlings and the "grey, clamped-down stillness" of November.
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