We live in an age when much of what we love about the British countryside has gone. Some birds and animals have been lost forever, and many more are becoming increasingly rare.

Time to Stare has as its sharp focus an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Wales. With a nature lover’s persistence for seeking out and watching how creatures live - and an award-winning photographer’s eye for detail - Ray Armstrong presents a book that will have an appeal far beyond his beautiful home county of Monmouthshire.

Time to Stare follows the successful publication of Softly Wakes the Dawn by Hugh Brandon-Cox, which has earned plaudits from those who live the more peaceful corners of Britain’s countryside, and who like to have a reminder of it on their bookshelves or by their bedside. It is illustrated by more than one hundred high quality colour pictures taken by Ray Armstrong in a 25-year intense study of nature in the wild.