Description

---

The return of migrant birds from their wintering grounds in the tropics is one of the delights of America's spring, as anyone will testify whose heart has leapt in April or May at the first liquid song of the woodthrush, or the first black-and-orange flash of the Baltimore oriole. But in recent years concern has grown that migrant birds may be declining, perhaps because of deforestation at their winter quarters in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. In Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo, Michael McCarthy highlights for the first time the disappearance of these birds which, he points out, are a part of Europe's distinctive cultural furniture, "as much as cathedrals, Latin, olive oil, or wine." He shows how their loss would do devastating damage to the cultural inheritance of us all.

About the Author

---

Michael McCarthy is one of Britain's leading writers on the environment. Formerly environment correspondent for the Times of London, for the last ten years he has been environment editor of the Independent. Three times he has been named environment reporter of the year and in 2007 was awarded the medal of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.