Mark Cocker

Mark Cocker
Mark Cocker (courtesy of Alasdair Cross)
Born	1959
Residence	Norfolk
Nationality	British
Fields	Naturalist Author
Alma mater	University of East Anglia (English Literature)
Notable awards	Crow Country was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for Non-Fiction (2008)
Spouse	Mary Muir
Children	Two

Mark Cocker is a British author and naturalist. He lives and works deep in the Norfolk countryside with his wife, Mary Muir, and two daughters in Claxton. All of his eight books have dealt with modern responses to the wild, whether found in landscape, human societies or in other species.

Cocker has written extensively for British newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and BBC Wildlife. He has written a regular 'Country Diary' column in the Guardian since 1988 and a wildlife column in the international subscribers' edition, the Guardian Weekly from 1996–2002. He reviews regularly for the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement.

Cocker was brought up and educated in Buxton, Derbyshire, the gateway to the Peak District National Park. This early access to the spectacular limestone flora of the Derbyshire Dales and the specialised upland birds of the Dark Peak provided formative experiences in his evolution as a naturalist.

He was educated at Buxton College, and studied English Literature at the University of East Anglia (1978–82), where he became immersed in East Anglia's nationally important wildlife landscapes, including the North Norfolk coast, Breckland and the Broads. These became the inspiration for the vast majority of 900+ articles on wildlife, published in national and regional newspapers.