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  • The Oldie

    Nature

    Sep 20, 2023 4 minutes

    ONE MIDSUMMER'S DAY

    MARK COCKER

    Cape, 352pp, £20

    Mark Cocker is one of the most acclaimed of British nature writers. In One Midsummer's Day, he takes a single day in his English garden to take the reader back to the origins of the world and the vast interconnectedness of everything. He uses as his messenger for this huge theme the remarkable swift which darts and skirls above us from April to August.

    In the Guardian, Katy Guest marvelled at just how extraordinary swifts are. ‘They have been recorded at altitudes of 4,400m, and travel so far in a single trip that a nesting pair feeding their chicks in southern

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