What I’ve been reading this week, 10 January 2020

A hunter on the wing, windshelter, the YouTube journey, and walking in the footsteps of Thoreau.

Environment and nature

‘Climate change is us. The sixth extinction is us. We are at the heart of all of these issues.’ – this interview with Julian Hoffman, who wrote Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places (which I’m currently reading), is excellent.

Country diary: a hunter on the wing – a short and evocative piece of writing from Mark Cocker about a hunting owl.

‘Silent death’: Australia’s bushfires push countless species to extinction – ‘Bushfires don’t just burn animals to death but create starvation events.’

New wetland takes shape in Lincolnshire – I look forward to watching this site develop over the years.

Long-distance hiking and the outdoors

Windshelter – some beautiful writing here. ‘Another reason for my being drawn to snowy summits is how their pallidity changes them. The lack of colour alters their place within the landscape. The peaks are iterated. They demand assessment, or scrutiny, of their blankness.’

Kevin Woods Takes on Winter Munro Round – Kevin Woods is part of his way through an incredible journey.

The YouTube journey: What have I learned so far? – Robin Wallace has written a useful and interesting blog post about what it’s like to start up an outdoors YouTube channel.

Why I’m not a big fan of rock climbing – I must admit, Mark doesn’t make rock climbing sound too appealing here…

Photography

Why I’m Sticking with Lightroom Classic… for Now – this is a good piece by a photographer who gave Lightroom CC (the new mobile-based version) an honest shot, and found it lacking for her needs. I’m also sticking with Lightroom Classic. Both versions can access the same cloud storage and broadly do the same job, but with very different interfaces and a different overall philosophy. Adobe’s products are pretty confusing at the moment.

The best of 2019 wildlife photography awards – in pictures – these images are spectacular.

My Photography in 2019: Favourite Pictures – Chris Townsend’s favourite landscape images from 2019.

Books, writing, and editing

Walking In The Footsteps Of Thoreau – a great essay by Linda Hoy on the enmeshment between walking and writing.

Miscellaneous

Twitter will put options to limit replies directly on the compose screen – I’m cautiously optimistic about this. It could take us another step towards making Twitter a bit more bearable. At least the social network seems to be listening and is willing to try new things in order to solve some of its problems.

Readers can now support my writing by making a one-off donation via my tip jar. Your spare change helps keep me going on the trail!