Lakeland Book of the Year 2018, Bookends Prize for Art and Literature, WINNER. With its enchanting song, striking orange bill and endearing willingness to share our living space, the blackbird is one of our best-loved birds. And, in common with all our garden wildlife, it plays a critical role in Britain's fragile and precious biodiversity. In The Blackbird Diaries, Karen Lloyd shares her deep-rooted knowledge and affection for the flora and fauna of these isles. And she issues a clarion call for the conservation of endangered habitats and species - most notably the curlew, Europe's largest wading bird. Over the four seasons, Karen intimately chronicles the drama of the natural world as it all unfolds in her garden and in the limestone hills and valleys of Cumbria's South Lakeland. What emerges is a celebration of landscapes that rarely feature in nature writing. But more than that, at a time of critical species loss, she offers rare insights into the lives of animals that may be common but are no less remarkable.

Prizes

Winner of Lakeland Book of the Year Awards, Bookends Prize for Art and Literature 2018

"Sure to delight readers and fans of British wildlife... Like all good nature writing books, Lloyd's prose is to be savoured. Not raced through and devoured like the latest crime thriller, but to be absorbed, enjoyed and reflected upon." Megan Shersby, BBC Countryfile magazine; "A writer of rare talent... Lloyd quietly and unassumingly shares her observations of nature, drawing you into a world made rich with the company of birds. Nothing is beyond her eye - from wavering flocks of lapwing, or the mad arcs of swifts to the majesty of sea eagles, the evening sunlight caught crystalline in their eyes." Miriam Darlington, BBC Wildlife; "A charming and informative account... [Lloyd] has a keen eye and a quiet, understated way of describing her neighbourhood that I found captivating. It brought to mind the writing of ... Kathleen Jamie ... Keenly observed." Katharine Norbury, Caught by the River

Karen Lloyd is a writer of non-fiction and poetry based in Kendal, Cumbria. She has contributed to the Guardian Country Diary and the Royal Geographical Society magazine and is a features writer for BBC Wildlife and Countryfile magazines. The editor of Curlew Calling Anthology, she works at both regional and local levels on the urgent need for curlew restoration. Karen is a member of Kendal's Brewery Poets, gained a distinction in her Creative Writing M.Litt at Stirling University and is a 2019 Read Regional awardee. Both The Gathering Tide and The Blackbird Diaries won Lakeland Awards and were selected as books of the year, in the Observer and the Birdwatcher's Handbook.