About

Stephen Rutt is a writer and amateur naturalist, specialising in creative non-fiction prose and birds. He won the Saltire Society’s first book award, as well as a Roger Deakin award for his debut book, The Seafarers. His second book, Wintering was one of The Times’s best nature books of the year for 2019. The Eternal Season, his third book, has been shortlisted for the Saltire Society’s non-fiction book of the year. His writing has been published by Granta.com, The Guardian, The Scotsman and Caught By The River.

He can be found on twitter @steverutt and Instagram steve.rutt.

The art for this website was created by Suzie Cichy.

Books

The Eternal Season: Ghosts of Summers Past, Present and Future, published by Elliott & Thompson, 1st July 2021.

Wintering: A Season with Geese, published by Elliott & Thompson, 26th September, 2019.

The Seafarers: A Journey Among Birds, published by Elliott & Thompson, 23rd May 2019.

‘Goldeneye’, in Into The Red, curated by Kit Jewitt and Mike Toms, published by the British Trust for Ornithology, 4th October, 2022.

Selected Articles and Interviews

‘Shadows and Reflections’, Caught By The River, December 2nd, 2022. https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2022/12/shadows-reflections-stephen-rutt/

‘What Feathers Know’, Granta.com, November 30th, 2022. https://granta.com/what-feathers-know/

‘The Birds of the Sun’, Caught By The River, October 29th, 2022. https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2022/10/stephen-rutt-bee-eaters/

‘Country Diary: This is surely my last dragonfly of the year’, The Guardian, September 14th, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/14/country-diary-this-is-surely-my-last-dragonfly-of-the-year

‘Never take a nightjar for granted’, The Scotsman, August 20th, 2022.

‘Country Diary: Seeing the beauty in this world for the first time’, The Guardian, March 14th, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/14/country-diary-seeing-the-beauty-in-this-world-for-the-first-time

‘Country Diary: Porcelain fungi light the dark like a splash of milk’, The Guardian, September 18th, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/18/country-diary-porcelain-fungi-light-the-dark-like-a-splash-of-milk

‘Beside the bog of time’ Gutter (Volume 24), August 2021.

‘Country Diary: A tale of two fritillaries’, The Guardian, July 19th, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/19/country-diary-a-tale-of-two-fritillaries

‘Country Diary: Ice that’s hair today, but gone in an instant’, The Guardian, December 12th, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/12/country-diary-ice-thats-hair-today-but-gone-in-an-instant

‘Country Diary: The Vanguard from Svalbard’, The Guardian, October 5th, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/05/country-diary-the-vanguard-from-svalbard

‘A thousand strong dawn chorus’, The Scotsman, November 28th, 2020.

‘How seven months on an isolated island changed my life’, The Scotsman, June 4th, 2020. https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/how-seven-months-isolated-scottish-island-changed-my-life-2873998

‘Six Questions: Stephen Rutt about Seabirds and Islands’, interviewed by Anna Iltnere for the Sea Library: https://beachbooks.blog/2019/07/24/6-questions-stephen-rutt-about-sea-birds/

‘A word about birds: author on how he fell for Britain’s beaky blinders’, The Honest Truth, The Sunday Post. May 26, 2019.

‘Taking Flight’, interview with Carol Hogarth, published in Dumfries & Galloway Life July 2019.

‘Into the White’: a review of Michael Engelhard’s Ice Bear for Minding Nature (Spring 2017). https://www.humansandnature.org/into-the-white

‘Essex, February 2017’, in Curlew Calling, published by Numenius Press (2017), edited by Karen Lloyd.

‘A Shingle Street Elegy’, in EarthLines magazine, issue 17, March 2017.

‘The Pickieterno‘, in Driftfish, published by Zoomorphic (2016), edited by Susan Richardson and James Roberts.

‘A Bird in the Hand’, in EarthLines magazine, issue 13, November 2015.