The Secret Life of a Garden (ISBN 0879514655)

A book which reveals endless hours of patience.:
From those romantic subjects such as a Grey Squirrel in mid leap right down to a plant which is overrun by Greenfly and Aphids, Stephen Dalton is the man who seems to be able to take the right photograph just at the right time. As a natural history photography myself, I thought I was already aware of most of the wildlife which exists in my garden. In this book, however, this author shows me how to look beyond those obvious subjects such as animals, birds and flowers (although these too are also included to great effect) and discover much more besides. Only in a book by Stephen Dalton do we get to look at the way in which leaves from different trees fall together to make uniquely coloured patterns, or the way in which the early morning dew reveals the cobwebs of money spiders, or the way in which fungus - yes fungus!, radiates out from an old sawn log. This is a book for anyone with an interest in their own garden. Once read, you will never look at that garden in the same way ever again. It is also a book for those of us who wish we could take natural history photographs - half as good. NM