Don't beat yourself up if you can't pick out the juvenile Caspian Gull among a flock of Herring Gulls!

                                                                

Colourful and controversial - Ian's Carter's new book

"IF identifying and recording is not your thing, then don't feel bad about."

That is one of the messages from Ian Carter, a former staffer at Natural England, in his exhilarating new book, Wild Galloway.

He explains: "I don't take the identification process too far.

"An autumn Wheatear is just that. 

"Unless it looks obviously different, I'm not going to work studiously through every feature just to make sure it is not one of the rarer species.

"The subtleties of size, shape and plumage that leads some birders to Caspian Gulls mostly elude me."

This is a refreshingly different perspective that would probably irk some birders - and possibly the whole of the BTO establishment which has a relentlessly scientific and, some would say, soulless approach.

"Too much counting, recording and form-filling eats away at the therapeutic benefit I get away from the house," continues Carter.

"The joy of being outside comes from escaping the myriad plans and  schemes that consume so much of our lives."

The book, subtitled From The Hilltops to The Solway, A Portrait of A Glen, is in large part an exquisitely-written account of the habitats and wildlife around his adoptive home in this part of South-west Scotland. (He is particularly good on sea ducks and butterflies.)

But, though often elegiac, the content is never soft, nor 'soppy'. Many of the author's reflections carry a sharp edge. Along the way, he does not shirk from treading on toes - not infrequently his own.

For instance, he acknowledges a sense of guilt in filling his car with fuel, then motoring off on a non-essential birding trip.

"We have all, it seems, become experts at making allowances for our own excesses while simultaneously objecting to those of others.

"There is so often, it seems a good reason why you are the exception and everyone else is the rule."

This challenging and highly readable book is  published in paperback at £17.99 by Caithness-based Whittles Publishing ( www.whittlespublishing.com ).

                                              

Ian Carter - happy times in Galloway