FOLLOWING the success of their remarkable debut book, Wivenhoe's Dunlin Press are back with another gorgeous work celebrating the writing and wildlife of East Anglia.

Migrant Waders, which is being launched next week, was actually the first book Ella Johnston and Martin Bewick wanted to release when they set up Dunlin back in 2014.

"When we came up with the idea of Dunlin," Ella says, "and started talking about all the things we wanted to do, one of them was a book on wading birds."

"But of course that soon led to issues of migration," Martin adds, "and the notion of borders and the places where these birds come from.

"Our last book Est very much dealt with East Anglia but we've broadened our horizons with this new one."

Est: Collected Reports from East Anglia, a collection of prose, poetry and reportage that spanned the Wash to the Thames and the Fens to the German Sea, came out last year to huge critical acclaim.

As with Est, Martin and Ella put out a call to writers to submit material for the new book and once again have struck literary gold with pieces by cult author David Southwell as well as Guardian country diarist Colin Williams, Martin Harper from the RSPB and Richard Carter who co-founded the Friends of Charles Darwin.

More locally there are also pieces by graduates from the Wild Writing course at Essex University, Melinda Appleby and Elizabeth Lee Reynolds as well as local poet Pam Job.

But central to this book are the beautiful drawings by Ella of the wading birds that frequent the local salt marshes along the Colne and other nearby rivers and creeks such as the oyster catcher, greenshank, turnstone, and of course the dunlin. Martin's own contribution is to provide entries about the far off places the birds come from.

Ella says: "We're really pleased with how the different pieces of writing have all interlinked with the drawings and the panels on the places. You never how it's going to turn out when you start off on a project like this but it's exciting to see it all take shape."

Ella and Martin met while studying at Essex University and moved back to Wivenhoe from London in 2011.

With Martin working as a freelance editor and Ella a magazine editor for a local publishing company, it had been a long-held dream of the pair to start work on their own publishing project.

Ella says: "We knew Est was a quality product but we also knew it was pretty niche in what it was trying to do

"With both working as magazine editors we realised it was all about bringing in good writing and putting it together in a way that takes the reader on a journey."

The Migrant Waders is being launched at the Church Street Tavern, Colchester, on Thursday, April 21 from 7pm. All are welcome.

Priced £12.99 the book itself is available from Wivenhoe Books and Red Lion Books in Colchester.