Nature Done Wright

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of J.A. Baker, the British author who wrote “The Peregrine,” the most lyrical book ever written about these magnificent raptors.

I believe that Baker and the book are so important that I devoted an entire chapter of my book “The Peregrine Falcon” (Schiffer Publishing) to them.

I compare reading Baker’s rich prose to eating chocolate cake – to be savored one small bite at time and not consumed all at once. (I also recommend getting the Audible version, narrated by David Attenborough. Exquisite.)

With the permission of Baker’s estate, I was able to include a photo of the mostly anonymous author in my book. It was the least I could do.

Here’s a brief sample of Baker’s writing:

For ten years I spent all my winters searching for that restless brilliance,
for the sudden passion and violence that peregrines flush from the sky.
For ten years I have been looking upward for that cloud-biting anchor
shape, that crossbow flinging through the air. The eye becomes insatiable
for hawks. It clicks towards them with ecstatic fury, just as the hawk’s
eye swings and dilates to the luring food-shapes of gulls and pigeons.

Here’s to you, John Alec Baker.

Photo courtesy by Doug Atfield. J.A. Baker Archive, Special Collections, Albert Sloman Library, University of Essex/Copyright Estate of J.A. Baker.