Footprints in the Woods: The Secret Life of Forest and Riverbank

LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RICHARD JEFFERIES AWARD
A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023

Footprints in the Woods is John Lister-Kaye’s account of a year spent observing the comings and goings of otters, badgers, weasels and pine martens. This family - Mustelidae - all live in the wild at Aigas, the conservation and field study centre that has been John’s home for more than forty-five years.

With the patient and meticulous care of a true naturalist, John observes and records the lives, habits and habitats of these elusive animals. Hours of careful waiting and watching in the woods and loch, the river, fields and moorland is rewarded with insight into how these animals live when unhindered by human interference; sometimes red in tooth and claw, but often playful, familial, curious and surprising.

As a boy, badgers and weasels were John’s first encounter with wild animals. Now he has spent fifty years living side-by side with them in the Highlands and come to know much of their ways. Footprints in the Woods is the culmination of that long association with the Mustelidae family, a love letter to the otters, badgers, weasels and pine martens that also call Aigas home, and a reminder of the fragility of habitat and the beauty and variety we have to lose if we don’t choose to actively protect it.