Summer is here, and I’m just back from a wonderful trip to see the puffins at the Farne Islands – one of the most amazing wildlife encounters I’ve had in Britain. I’ve shared a couple of pics below. I admire their hardiness as I found swimming in the North Sea in May to be exceedingly chilly!

I’m back home now to put the finishing touches to my new book A Single Map (about exploring more locally than ever before). I’m struggling with the design of the cover, but the words are all in the bag. I was thrilled and grateful that the Royal Geographical Society has given me the Ness Award as a ‘traveller who has successfully popularised geography and the wider understanding of our world and its environments’, and I’m hoping that A Single Map helps more people start to pay attention to the nature and wildness on our doorsteps.

My new book for children, Against the Odds, hits the shops in July but you can pre-order it here if you’re eager.

Thank you, as always, to the 90 of you who help support these newsletters via Patreon. It keeps the metaphorical lights on and ensures my three newsletters remain free for 17,000 readers.

• The swifts have returned! I love spotting my first swift of the summer. Here’s a piece about the mysterious birds that never come down.
• An interesting thread about two colossal forest-planting megaprojects in development.
• Never Town explores Australia’s remote southern coastlines-and what surfers are willing to do to keep them wild.
• First Dog, 10th Man to Walk Around the World.
• Hurrah! Beau Miles has started a podcast.
• Women Writing About the Wild: 25 Essential Authors. A primer on who to start reading and who you’ve been overlooking for too long.
• Tons of Discarded Fishing Nets Are Formed into Beautiful Sculptures of the Wildlife They Entangle. (If you don’t know about Ghost Fishing, give it a Google – it’s shocking!)
• The Writing Process of how I put my books together.

Let me know if you have a relevant project that my readers would appreciate. Here’s what you guys have been up to recently: