Bøger af Mike Tomkies

After giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies moved to Eilean Shona, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland.

When Mike Tomkies moved to a remote cottage on the shores of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands of Scotland, he found a place which was to provide him with the most profound wilderness experience of his life.

A reprint of one of Mike Tomkies' classic wilderness books. Includes an appreciation of his life and work and a celebration of nature at its most rugged and spectacular.

Within days of arriving back from five years of studying bears, wolves and lynxes in Spain, he is up a wild cliff in Cornwall watching three peregrine falcon chicks from hatching to flying stage. We can follow his astounding adventures over the next ten years as he obsessively searches all through Britain for that elusive 'small wild paradise' so many of us would also like to find. He lives in, but finally loses, no less than six new homes in that time and the complications and reasons why are both hilarious and sad. Even more fascinating is his continual obsessive quest to get up close and personal with nesting goshawks, buzzards and ospreys, as well as mammals like fishing otters, a fox family and he even feeds wild badgers by hand. At one remote farmhouse in the Borders, he learns how to handle a bulldozer, digs out his own 70-yard lake and stocks it with trout. Over three years there he raises ten barn owl chicks and establishes three breeding pairs in areas where they had long been absent. It was the most successful barn owl release at the time. There are many amusing anecdotes such as when he dreaded taking some of Prince Harry's classmates to 'otter bay' and then saw far more otters than when he had gone there on his own!Transcending all are his new studies and descriptions of hunting and nesting golden eagles, during which he passed his 3,050th hour in one of his home-made 'invisible' hides, and a huge female allowed him to bring much-needed meat to her chicks in their eyrie. The book ends with triumphant filming of the magnificent white-tailed sea eagles on Mull, hunting and sailing into their high nest with prey and feeding their chicks. Mike also achieved valuable publicity for the pioneering public sea eagle hide project on Mull.

Some seven years after abandoning the life of an international journalist for a life in the wilds, Mike Tomkies began a remarkable experiment, rearing the most ferocious animal to roam wild in Britain - the Scottish wildcat. The true wildcat is now an endangered species and only to be found in inaccessible parts of the Scottish mountains. It may look like a giant domestic tabby, but with its bright red tongue and vicious claws, it is a formidable and fearless opponent of mankind. It is justly noted for being untameable. To begin with, Mike became the custodian of two spitfire kittens, found abandoned in a ditch when only a few weeks old. Even before they were fully weaned in his kitchen, they could be approached only with extreme care, usually with thick gauntlets as protection against the ravages of tooth and claw. He named them Cleo and Patra, and built them a sturdy natural pen between his lonely cottage and the west wood. The kittens were only seven months old when a spitting and snarling ten-year-old tomcat arrived from London Zoo to change all their lives. Mike resolved to breed a wildcat family and prepare them for a return to the wild. In the years that followed little of the scant scientific theory on wildcat behaviour was borne out by his careful observations. An update of the lengthy appendix which discusses wildcat populations, history and research on the breed including issues of genetic purity is included in this new edition. Mike's extraordinary adventures in raising and releasing no fewer than three litters, two pure wildcat and one hybrid from a domestic male gone wild, are full of incident, at times hilarious, and deeply moving. The runt of Cleo's second litter demolished Mike's last defences by giving him her total trust and affection while fiercely retaining an utterly wild and independent nature, so he became first to 'tame' a wildcat. This unique story of communion between man and animal is taken from two books that have long been out of print - My Wilderness Wildcats and Liane, A Cat from the Wild - revised and updated by the author and illustrated with many new photographs, all in colour.

After giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies found Eilean Shona, a remote island 'between earth and paradise' off the west coast of Scotland. There he rebuilt a rotting wooden crofthouse which sheep had used for shelter from the bitter Atlantic winds and began a new way of life, observing nature, that was to last to the present day. He tracked wildlife, stags, foxes, made friends with the seals, and taught a young injured sparrowhawk to hunt for itself. It was the indomitable spirit of this tiny hawk that taught Tomkies what it takes for any of us to be truly free. Whether he was fishing, growing his own food or battling through stormy seas in a small boat, he learned that he could survive in the harsh environment. This book, the beginning of a remarkable Scottish odyssey, has long been out of print until now - but one which has long been demanded by Tomkies' loyal readers. Between Earth and Paradise tells of an astonishing story - of daring to take the first step away from urban routines, which many of us only dream about - which led in turn to an even more remote location and his unrivalled series of books on the golden eagle, the wildcats he reared, and his faithful dog, Moobli.

The legendary wildlife writer's biography including his time mingling with Hollywood stars, before he went to the Canadian wilderness

Second part of auto about leaving his Hollywood life for wilderness writing

This is the story of a man who achieved what thousands only dream of. He shed the pressures of urban life as an international journalist and exchanged it for solitude, self-sufficiency and new purpose. He emigrated to Canada, found a plot of rock, trees and cliffs in a remote part of the British Columbian coastline, and moved in with typewriter, tent and the barest necessities to build his dream cabin. How he eventually built his log cabin, learned to live off the sea, adjusted to and worked with the hardest taskmaster of all - Nature - fought loneliness and was inevitably drawn to greater understanding of his remote wilderness and its wild creatures, is an inspiring story. His adventures with nesting bald eagles, a cheeky raccoon, grizzlies, a lame seagull, killer whales and other creatures, are as informative as they are enthralling. Three extraordinary characters enhanced his experiences: Ed Louette, a skilled backwoods carpenter; Pappy Tihoni, a Scots-Indian who guided him on his most dangerous but fulfilling expedition into the mountains and wild dog Booto, who scratched at his cabin door with wagging tail when loneliness threatened to overwhelm. This book is as compelling and perhaps even more relevant today with the world's great wilderness areas continuing to disappear.