In my childhood, I wandered constantly over the South Downs in Sussex, England, searching for a glimpse of the natural world. Whether lifting stones and poking at insects, or crouching behind bushes at night waiting for badgers to emerge from their den, animals held an unerring fascination. In college I studied Zoology and examined or even dissected mysterious creatures of the land and sea. I spent three months in the mangrove and forests of Borneo as a student in search of the mysterious tarsier and hilarious proboscis monkey. And ever since these formative years, I delight at sharing our world, both exotic and urbane, with the magnificant wild creatures that we are sometimes privileged to see.



This book presents a selection of those moments that I have been lucky to photograph, when for an instant, these animals have allowed me into their world.