Colin Simms is a freelance naturalist, poet and motorcycle enthusiast, who is based in a remote part of northern England. Amongst his partuclar fields of expertise as a naturalist is the mustelidae family - otters and martens, both European and North American. While doing scientific field work, Colin Simms also writes poems about the animals he studies - poems that owe much to the example of Basil Bunting and the Pound tradition, and have a wonderfully gnarled music about them. This volume collects almost 150 of his poems about otters and martens, drawn from his entire writing career. Although he has published widely in magazines and with small presess for more than 30 years this is Simms' first full-scale book to be made available through the trade. It will delight animal-lovers and poetry-lovers alike.