According to John McEwen, writing in The Spectator on 11/10/2014:
Mark Cocker is the naturalist of the moment, with birds his special interest.
This accolade, with dozens more, is presumably the reason that his opinions on other nature-writers are thought of value, and we have just read his article Death of the Naturalist in New Statesman, 17/06/2015.
He was by no means as even-handed in his writing of it as was the editor Jason Cowley in his publishing of the piece. It may be remembered that it was Jason Cowley, then editor of Granta, who anthologized in Granta 102 (2008) what could be called the cream of ‘The New Nature Writing’, and we wonder how thoroughly he had read Mark Cocker’s article — considering its content. Continue reading