Growing up, Nicola watched skylarks and fieldfares soar over the chalk hills. But to love nature is to be aware of losing it. From fighting for ancient trees to rewilding Greenham Common, this is how Nicola made sense of her world – and gave her family a place to belong.
Nicola Chester’s clarion call to nature conservation was first recognised when she won the BBC Wildlife Magazine’s Nature Writer of the Year Award in 2003. She won the Richard Jefferies Award 2021 for nature writing for On Gallows Down. She has written a regular column for the RSPB members’ magazine, Nature’s Home, for over fifteen years. She is a Guardian Country Diarist and wrote the first book in the RSPB’s Spotlight series on iconic British wildlife, Otters. Her writing features in several anthologies, including all four Seasons books, edited by Melissa Harrison, the new Red Sixty Seven book and Women on Nature, edited by Katharine Norbury.
Author photo by Jeremy Prout