Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo: Migratory Birds and the Impending Ecological Catastrophe

by Michael McCarthy

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442251939
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.00(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Preface 1 Spring-Bringers 2 Out of Africa 3 A Sense of Wonder 4 Unlocking the Soundscape 5 The Spirit of the Place 6 A Promise of Lazy Days 7 What’s So Special About Swallows? 8 Understatement on a Fence Post 9 The Wildness Within 10 The Wandering Voice 11 Warnings from the New World 12 Vanishings 13 A Loss of a Different Order Acknowledgments Index

Editorial Reviews

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo is a terribly moving book. .. about the vast numbers of vanishing spring birds.

Times Of Malta - Kristina Chetcuti

Michael McCarthy’s Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo combines an exploration of the crisis that temperate-zone migrant birds are now facing with a celebration of Europe’s birds—their beauty, their haunts, their symbolic and cultural value in our civilization and traditions.. .. [His] descriptions are glorious.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

A beautiful and important book.

Simon Barnes

The mix of discovery of the real bird with myth, poetry, and legend is simply exquisite.. .. I recommend this book for everyone even remotely interested in birds. I also recommend it for students in ornithology classes or classes where 'sustainability' is a theme, for the book contains a wealth of scientific information melded beautifully with what spring-bringers mean to us.

Journal Of Field Ornithology

Michael McCarthy details the environmental challenges faced by European cuckoo and other songbirds in England. McCarthy's book is worth reading because many of the problems experienced by these birds also face our own backyard birds here in the United States.

The Advocate

McCarthy (environmental editor, The Independent, UK) writes eloquently about the losses of European 'spring bringers,' migratory birds which have historically been an important part of the folklore, literature, and culture of people in Europe and North America. Focusing on the 'miraculous aerial river' of birds 'flow[ing] out of Africa into Europe,' the author discusses the radical environmental changes which have been adversely affecting their numbers. Many species are fast disappearing, suggesting the unthinkable: future silent springs. The numbers of different migrant species that failed to return to Britain in the 13 years leading up to 2007 ranged from 37 to 67 percent. Disruptions affecting these birds include climate change, which is also affecting the cycles of plant and insect life on which birds depend; forest losses in the developing world; and human population growth—particularly in Africa. Intensified agricultural practices, such as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have taken a further toll. From the early 1960s until 2004, when major revisions were made, this policy featured ecologically unsound use of pesticides and fertilizers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Choice Reviews

McCarthy (environmental editor, The Independent, UK) writes eloquently about the losses of European 'spring bringers,' migratory birds which have historically been an important part of the folklore, literature, and culture of people in Europe and North America. Focusing on the 'miraculous aerial river' of birds 'flow[ing] out of Africa into Europe,' the author discusses the radical environmental changes which have been adversely affecting their numbers. Many species are fast disappearing, suggesting the unthinkable: future silent springs. The numbers of different migrant species that failed to return to Britain in the 13 years leading up to 2007 ranged from 37 to 67 percent. Disruptions affecting these birds include climate change, which is also affecting the cycles of plant and insect life on which birds depend; forest losses in the developing world; and human population growth—particularly in Africa. Intensified agricultural practices, such as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have taken a further toll. From the early 1960s until 2004, when major revisions were made, this policy featured ecologically unsound use of pesticides and fertilizers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

CHOICE

McCarthy (environmental editor, The Independent, UK) writes eloquently about the losses of European 'spring bringers,' migratory birds which have historically been an important part of the folklore, literature, and culture of people in Europe and North America. Focusing on the 'miraculous aerial river' of birds 'flow[ing] out of Africa into Europe,' the author discusses the radical environmental changes which have been adversely affecting their numbers. Many species are fast disappearing, suggesting the unthinkable: future silent springs. The numbers of different migrant species that failed to return to Britain in the 13 years leading up to 2007 ranged from 37 to 67 percent. Disruptions affecting these birds include climate change, which is also affecting the cycles of plant and insect life on which birds depend; forest losses in the developing world; and human population growth—particularly in Africa. Intensified agricultural practices, such as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have taken a further toll. From the early 1960s until 2004, when major revisions were made, this policy featured ecologically unsound use of pesticides and fertilizers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Choice

'What would it mean to us if the spring-bringers stopped arriving?' Would it be like losing rainbows? Michael McCarthy wonders, or roses or hope or music? It's a new tactic—asking us to imagine our world without the species, sounds and smells we take for granted. And it works. A sense of wonder is replaced with a strange hollow feeling—one part guilt, one part regret and one part denial.

Los Angeles Times

In luminous prose, British writer McCarthy addresses the cultural significance of migratory songbirds, from nightingales to turtle doves to the European Cuckoo, on the heart and soul. . . . A stunning and profound book that will make readers realize how very much these amazing winged creatures matter.

Booklist

…not so much a warning of impending ecological doom as a paean to the joys of birding—a plea to pay attention to winged creatures before it's too late.
—The Washington Post

Aaron Leitko

In luminous prose, British writer McCarthy addresses the cultural significance of migratory songbirds, from nightingales to turtle doves to the European Cuckoo, on the heart and soul.. .. A stunning and profound book that will make readers realize how very much these amazing winged creatures matter.

Booklist

'What would it mean to us if the spring-bringers stopped arriving?' Would it be like losing rainbows? Michael McCarthy wonders, or roses or hope or music? It's a new tactic—asking us to imagine our world without the species, sounds and smells we take for granted. And it works. A sense of wonder is replaced with a strange hollow feeling—one part guilt, one part regret and one part denial.

|Los Angeles Times

A plea to pay attention to winged creatures before it's too late.

The Washington Post

An elegiac book about migration.

Times Online - Charles Clover

Vivid. .. especially affecting.. .. A passionate primer on loss.

Times Literary Supplement

This is the most important book I have read for a long time.

BBC Countryfile Magazine

McCarthy (environmental editor, The Independent, UK) writes eloquently about the losses of European 'spring bringers,' migratory birds which have historically been an important part of the folklore, literature, and culture of people in Europe and North America. Focusing on the 'miraculous aerial river' of birds 'flow[ing] out of Africa into Europe,' the author discusses the radical environmental changes which have been adversely affecting their numbers. Many species are fast disappearing, suggesting the unthinkable: future silent springs. The numbers of different migrant species that failed to return to Britain in the 13 years leading up to 2007 ranged from 37 to 67 percent. Disruptions affecting these birds include climate change, which is also affecting the cycles of plant and insect life on which birds depend; forest losses in the developing world; and human population growth—particularly in Africa. Intensified agricultural practices, such as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have taken a further toll. From the early 1960s until 2004, when major revisions were made, this policy featured ecologically unsound use of pesticides and fertilizers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

September 2010 Choice Reviews

Michael McCarthy’s Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo combines an exploration of the crisis that temperate-zone migrant birds are now facing with a celebration of Europe’s birds—their beauty, their haunts, their symbolic and cultural value in our civilization and traditions.. .. [His] descriptions are glorious.

From the Publisher

McCarthy (environmental editor, The Independent, UK) writes eloquently about the losses of European 'spring bringers,' migratory birds which have historically been an important part of the folklore, literature, and culture of people in Europe and North America. Focusing on the 'miraculous aerial river' of birds 'flow[ing] out of Africa into Europe,' the author discusses the radical environmental changes which have been adversely affecting their numbers. Many species are fast disappearing, suggesting the unthinkable: future silent springs. The numbers of different migrant species that failed to return to Britain in the 13 years leading up to 2007 ranged from 37 to 67 percent. Disruptions affecting these birds include climate change, which is also affecting the cycles of plant and insect life on which birds depend; forest losses in the developing world; and human population growth—particularly in Africa. Intensified agricultural practices, such as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have taken a further toll. From the early 1960s until 2004, when major revisions were made, this policy featured ecologically unsound use of pesticides and fertilizers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

September 2010 CHOICE

McCarthy (environmental editor, The Independent, UK) writes eloquently about the losses of European 'spring bringers,' migratory birds which have historically been an important part of the folklore, literature, and culture of people in Europe and North America. Focusing on the 'miraculous aerial river' of birds 'flow[ing] out of Africa into Europe,' the author discusses the radical environmental changes which have been adversely affecting their numbers. Many species are fast disappearing, suggesting the unthinkable: future silent springs. The numbers of different migrant species that failed to return to Britain in the 13 years leading up to 2007 ranged from 37 to 67 percent. Disruptions affecting these birds include climate change, which is also affecting the cycles of plant and insect life on which birds depend; forest losses in the developing world; and human population growth—particularly in Africa. Intensified agricultural practices, such as Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have taken a further toll. From the early 1960s until 2004, when major revisions were made, this policy featured ecologically unsound use of pesticides and fertilizers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

September 2010 Choice

Vivid . . . especially affecting. . . . A passionate primer on loss.

Times Literary Supplement (UK)

An elegiac book about migration.
— Charles Clover

Times Online

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo is a terribly moving book . . . about the vast numbers of vanishing spring birds.
— Kristina Chetcuti

Times Of Malta

This is the most important book I have read for a long time.

Bbc Countryfile Magazine