
Raptor: A Journey Through Birds
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.67
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dugald-Bruce Lockhart
About this listen
Winner of The Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011 and the Authors' Foundation Roger Deakin Award in 2011
A stunning debut in the tradition of Robert Macfarlane and Helen Macdonald
Of all the birds of the British Isles, the raptor reigns supreme, sparking the imagination like no other. In this magnificent hymn to these beautiful animals, James Macdonald Lockhart explores all fifteen breeding birds of prey on these shores – from the hen harrier swimming over the land in the dregs of a May gale on Orkney, to the ghostly sparrowhawk displaying in the fields around his home in Warwickshire. This is a book that will change how we think of our own skies.
©2016 James Macdonald Lockhart (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
-
Oceans of Kansas
- A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea
- By: Michael J. Everhart
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Revised, updated, and expanded with the latest interpretations and fossil discoveries, the second edition of Oceans of Kansas adds new twists to the fascinating story of the vast inland sea that engulfed central North America during the Age of Dinosaurs. Giant sharks, marine reptiles called mosasaurs, pteranodons, and birds with teeth all flourished in and around these shallow waters. Their abundant and well-preserved remains were sources of great excitement in the scientific community when first discovered in the 1860s and continue to yield exciting discoveries 150 years later.
-
-
CAUTION: will cause drowsiness.
- By Occasional Barista on 01-16-25
-
Origins
- How Earth's History Shaped Human History
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the southeast United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea.
-
-
GREAT Book with a Narrator Who's Falling Asleep
- By aaron on 08-02-20
By: Lewis Dartnell
-
The Wild Places
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness? In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic, Robert Macfarlane sets out in search of the wildness that remains.
-
-
Magical
- By Jennifer on 01-27-22
-
Gathering Moss
- A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.
-
-
Soul Stirring
- By KatieBourgeois on 02-23-19
-
The Yosemite
- By: John Muir
- Narrated by: Michael Zebulon
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Muir, who was born in Scotland and emigrated to America in 1849, was an advocate of U.S. forest conservation and was largely responsible for the establishment of Sequoia and Yosemite national parks in California. Muir has emerged as perhaps the greatest prophet of an era which finds itself suddenly aware of the urgent need to care for our planet.
-
-
Not the full book
- By John on 07-27-17
By: John Muir
-
Underland
- A Deep Time Journey
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
-
-
Wonderful book, disappointing narrator
- By Clare Woods on 07-05-19
-
Oceans of Kansas
- A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea
- By: Michael J. Everhart
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Revised, updated, and expanded with the latest interpretations and fossil discoveries, the second edition of Oceans of Kansas adds new twists to the fascinating story of the vast inland sea that engulfed central North America during the Age of Dinosaurs. Giant sharks, marine reptiles called mosasaurs, pteranodons, and birds with teeth all flourished in and around these shallow waters. Their abundant and well-preserved remains were sources of great excitement in the scientific community when first discovered in the 1860s and continue to yield exciting discoveries 150 years later.
-
-
CAUTION: will cause drowsiness.
- By Occasional Barista on 01-16-25
-
Origins
- How Earth's History Shaped Human History
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the southeast United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea.
-
-
GREAT Book with a Narrator Who's Falling Asleep
- By aaron on 08-02-20
By: Lewis Dartnell
-
The Wild Places
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness? In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic, Robert Macfarlane sets out in search of the wildness that remains.
-
-
Magical
- By Jennifer on 01-27-22
-
Gathering Moss
- A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.
-
-
Soul Stirring
- By KatieBourgeois on 02-23-19
-
The Yosemite
- By: John Muir
- Narrated by: Michael Zebulon
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Muir, who was born in Scotland and emigrated to America in 1849, was an advocate of U.S. forest conservation and was largely responsible for the establishment of Sequoia and Yosemite national parks in California. Muir has emerged as perhaps the greatest prophet of an era which finds itself suddenly aware of the urgent need to care for our planet.
-
-
Not the full book
- By John on 07-27-17
By: John Muir
-
Underland
- A Deep Time Journey
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
-
-
Wonderful book, disappointing narrator
- By Clare Woods on 07-05-19
-
Crossing Open Ground
- By: Barry Lopez
- Narrated by: Barry Lopez
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elegantly told against a haunting melodic backdrop, Crossing Open Ground's brilliant descriptions will sweep you into a new perspective - the land both gives us strength and molds our souls.
-
-
WONDERFUL
- By JK on 03-14-25
By: Barry Lopez
-
Living Planet
- The Web of Life on Earth
- By: David Attenborough
- Narrated by: David Attenborough
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nowhere on our planet is devoid of life. Plants and animals thrive or survive within every extreme of climate and habitat that it offers. Single species, and often whole communities, adapt to make the most of ice cap and tundra, forest and plain, desert, ocean and volcano. These adaptations can be truly extraordinary. In Living Planet, David Attenborough’s searching eye, unfailing curiosity and infectious enthusiasm explain and illuminate the intricate lives of the these colonies.
-
-
A treasure
- By Theresa on 06-16-23
-
The Armchair Birder
- Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds
- By: John Yow
- Narrated by: Kevin Young
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While birding literature is filled with tales of expert observers spotting rare species in exotic locales, John Yow reminds us that the most fascinating birds can be the ones perched right outside our windows. In thirty-five engaging and sometimes irreverent vignettes, Yow reveals the fascinating lives of the birds we see nearly every day. Following the seasons, he covers forty-two species, discussing the improbable, unusual, and comical aspects of his subjects' lives.
-
-
If You Love Birds . . . Grab It!
- By Kathy in CA on 02-23-17
By: John Yow
-
My Garden World
- The Natural Year
- By: Monty Don
- Narrated by: Monty Don
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Garden World by Monty Don is a celebration of every living creature that we all share. This year has given us the enforced opportunity to learn more about the fascinating natural world around us. Whether you live in the countryside or the town, Monty's observations and insights are relevant to each and every one of us. My Garden World is Monty Don's personal journey through the natural year, month by month, season by season, observed from the immediate world around him.
-
-
This has a new twist
- By Karen on 12-21-21
By: Monty Don
-
The Treeline
- The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth
- By: Ben Rawlence
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the last 50 years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Norway to Siberia, Alaska to Greenland, to meet the scientists, residents, and trees confronting huge geological changes.
-
-
A surprising find
- By BearheartRaven on 02-23-22
By: Ben Rawlence
-
The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
-
-
A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
-
Shakespeare
- The World as Stage
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
-
-
Too Little, Too Short
- By Charles L. Burkins on 11-30-07
By: Bill Bryson
-
The Peregrine
- By: J. A. Baker
- Narrated by: David Attenborough
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The nation's greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing, The Peregrine. J. A. Baker's classic of British nature writing was first published in 1967. Greeted with acclaim, it went on to win the Duff Cooper Prize, the pre-eminent literary prize of the time. Luminaries such as Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez and Andrew Motion have cited it as one of the most important books in 20th-century nature writing.
-
-
This is so fantastic that it makes me angry
- By charleswilters on 04-15-20
By: J. A. Baker
-
Vesper Flights
- By: Helen Macdonald
- Narrated by: Helen Macdonald
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building.
-
-
Pure delight
- By Secutor on 11-09-20
By: Helen Macdonald
-
Cleopatra
- A Life
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order.
-
-
Approach this book with caution
- By GolfZilla on 12-02-10
By: Stacy Schiff
-
My First Summer in the Sierra
- By: John Muir
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1869, John Muir, a young Scottish immigrant, joined a crew of shepherds in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. The diary he kept while tending sheep formed the heart of this book, which was first published in 1911 and which eventually lured thousands of Americans to visit Yosemite country. My First Summer in the Sierra incorporates the lyrical accounts and sketches Muir produced during his four-month stay in the Yosemite River Valley and the High Sierra.
-
-
Breath-Taking
- By Andre on 06-24-23
By: John Muir
-
The Blessing Way
- By: Tony Hillerman
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place: a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo tribal police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.
-
-
A 'Blessing' Indeed!
- By Carole T. on 03-15-16
By: Tony Hillerman
What listeners say about Raptor: A Journey Through Birds
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Courtiol Alexandre
- 02-19-25
MacGillivray would have enjoyed this book
Amazing writing, and efficient narrative meshing biology, geography and history. Highly recommended for all who is or is not scared to become a lover of nature.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!