On page 166 of Two Lights: Walking Through Landscapes Of Loss And Life, we learn the Old English word wundorweorc – wonderworks – was replaced by the word ‘miracle’, which itself evolved from Old French and Latin terms meaning ‘to wonder’. And that’s what this compact book is: a wonder. Of the things around us – flora, fauna and even the solar system. Nature, and the feelings it evokes, is at the fore, but the environment features throughout.

From the first page, it’s the breaking of dawn and we’re chasing it, starting at Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to a corner of Wales. This is a travelogue, memoir, history lesson and ‘save the planet’ bible all in one. Writer and artist James Roberts speaks passionately, lyrically and unflinchingly about the astonishing natural world, but he also speaks of the harm that’s being done to animals, plants, air, earth and water because of the horror of climate change.

Speaking candidly about his depression, anxiety and family illnesses that envelop like the squalls he’s witnessed, and willing to admit the sighting of the year’s first swift brings him to tears, Roberts recounts his travels, once-in-a-lifetime close encounters with amazing animals in the wild, and of his special love of birds from curlews, ravens and starlings to others the general public likely wouldn’t recognise. This debut book of non-fiction is also self-illustrated using a simple combination of ink, salt and water. The author draws comfort from little valley churches and woods, delights in comets and waterfalls, and his tranquil prose is enchanting.

Two Lights is filled with awe-inspiring joy, but also death and decline brought from extermination, fire, flooding and pollution. Roberts is Wales’ own Henry David Thoreau, of whom he writes so eloquently. He is on a mission, and we can follow by reading his work and hopefully, by example.