The Peregrine: The Hill of Summer & Diaries: The Complete Works of J. A. Baker

by J.A. Baker

Sparrowhawks were always near me in the dusk, like something I meant to say but could never quite remember.

Another wonderful image fron Baker

Bar-tailed godwits flying with curlew, with knot, with plover; seldom alone, seldom settling; snuffling eccentrics; long-nosed, loud-calling sea-rejoicers; their call a snorting, sneezing, mewing, spitting bark. Their thin upcurved bills turn, their heads turn, their shoulders and whole bodies turn, their wings waggle. They flourish their rococo flight above the surging water. Screaming gulls corkscrewing high under cloud. Islands blazing with birds. A peregrine rising and falling. Godwits ricocheting across water, tumbling, towering. A peregrine following, swooping, clutching. Godwit and peregrine darting, dodging; stitching land and water with flickering shuttle. Godwit climbing, dwindling, tiny, gone: peregrine diving, perching, panting, beaten.

A particularly rich example of the ornate, enthusiastic style of the book.

October 28th Beyond the last farm buildings, the smell of the salt and the mud and the sea-weed mingles with the smell of dead leaves and nutty autumn hedges, and suddenly there is no more inland, and green fields float out to the skyline on a mist of water.

The hawkless valley bloomed with the soft voices of the waking owls.

Still full of rich phrases and images

Astonishing, brutal writing.

Robins sang in a wood near the river, clear as spring water, fresh as the curled, crisped heart of a lettuce. Like the tinkle of a harpsichord, their song has a misty brightness of nostalgia.

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