A Year in the Medow, A Secret landscape, Benjamin Perkkins, 1995. (B12)

A Year in the Medow, A Secret landscape, Benjamin Perkkins, 1995. Lying hidden on the Suffolk-Essex border are Lapwing Meadows, an enclave of unspoilt meadowland among corn fields: and, like Gilbert White's parish of Selborne, they harbour an astonishing abundance and variety of wild life. As yet untouched by 'improved' farming methods, the land on this small patch is a natural reserve. There is an ancient bridleway, marshy ground, the Blackthorn thickets where Badgers have their sett, fox earths, and numerous species of birds, wild flowers, plants and grasses - a complete, self-sustaining habitat once common all over the country, but which is now rapidly becoming extinct under the pressures of intensive farming. A painter and a farmer, Benjamin Perkins has known and loved Lapwing Meadows for many years. Here he introduces the reader to its secrets in a series of exquisite flower and landscape paintings accompanied by interlinking text. As the seasons unfold, the reader is drawn into the ancient rhythms of the natural world, where the shifts in colour and light are matched by the changes in plant and animal activity, each an example of the delicate and mutually harmonious cooperation of nature and wild life when left to flourish alone. The story is not without drama - the cycles have their cruelties as well as their compensations - for such unspoilt areas are now a rarity, but as Benjamin Perkins reflects in his beautiful and minutely observed work, there is an unmatched richness and delight in the life of Lapwing Meadows. Over 75 full colour paintings and many pen and ink drawings, its a mini botanical art show in a book.