In spring, summer, autumn and winter, author and wildlife artist Alan Johnston wandered the lanes, tracks and roads of the Camargue armed with his pencils, watercolours and inks, filling hundreds of sketchbook pages. This book is the result of his sharp-eyed observations. He touches only briefly on the traditional iconic images of the Camargue. Instead, we have organic vineyards and ducks in the ricefields, sand-dune vegetation and wetland birds. And, for anyone who has ever been there, the notoriously ubiquitous mosquitos and biting midges.
This book was born of countless hours of patient waiting and watching. But Alan also records his accidental finds as he tramped the length and breadth of the Camargue. What he calls the "geographical poetry" of the Camargue emerges from his artwork, complemented by his own field notes and by the emotive poetry of French chroniclers of the remarkable landscape that is the Camargue.