Shearwater: A Bird, an Ocean, and a Long Way Home

by Roger Morgan-Grenville

Overview

'Shearwater is sheer delight, a luminous portrait of a magical seabird which spans the watery globe' Daily Mail.

'Charming and impassioned ... a rich tribute to an extraordinary bird.' Horatio Clare, author of A Single Swallow and Heavy Light.

A very personal mix of memoir and natural history from the author of Liquid Gold.

Ten weeks into its life, a Manx shearwater chick will emerge from its burrow and fly 8,000 miles from the west coast of the British Isles to the South Atlantic. It will be unlikely to touch land again for four years.

Part memoir, part homage to wilderness, Shearwater traces the author's 50-year obsession with one of nature's supreme travellers. In the finest tradition of nature writing, Roger Morgan-Grenville, author of Liquid Gold - described by Mary Colwell (Curlew Moon) as 'a book that ignites joy and warmth' - unpicks the science behind its incredible journey; and into the story of a year in the shearwater's life, he threads the inspirational influence of his Hebridean grandmother who instilled in him a love of wild places and wild animals.

Full of lightly-worn knowledge, acute human observation and self-deprecating humour, Shearwater brings to life a truly mysterious and charismatic bird.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785787201
Publisher:	Amberley Publishing
Publication date:	04/08/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	955,389
Product dimensions:	5.67(w) x 8.74(h) x 1.14(d)
Lexile:	1370L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Roger Morgan-Grenville was a soldier in the Royal Green Jackets from 1978-86, serving all over the world. In 1984-85, he led the first expedition that successfully retraced Sir Ernest Shackleton's escape across the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. After leaving the British army, he worked in, and then ran, a small family company importing and selling kitchenware. In 2007-08, he helped to set up the charity Help for Heroes, and in 2020 he was a founding member of the conservation charity, Curlew Action. He jointly set up a roving cricket team in 1986 (The Winchester Hunters) and lives in West Sussex. This is his fifth book. His previous title, Liquid Gold: Bees and the Pursuit of Midlife Honey, is also published by Icon.

Table of Contents

Maps xiii

Prologue: Wrong End of the World: May 2004, Tsu City, Japan xvii

Part 1 Outward Bound

1 The 83rd Bird: 1971, Isle of Mull 3

2 Diomedes' Secret: October 1984, 53.1 Degrees South, 41.4 Degrees West 15

3 Fantasy Rabbit Holes: July 25

4 The Oxbridge Seabird: Early August 45

5 An Island Full of Noises: Isle of Rum 65

6 The Night Visitor: September, Skomer Island 83

7 Towards a Southern Ocean: Autumn, Mid-Atlantic 111

8 The Most Expensive Bird in the World: Peninsula Valdes, Argentina 135

Part 2 Homeward Bound

9 A Cable Car and a Homecoming: March, West Cork, Ireland 163

10 The Legend and the Egg: April/May, Skomer Island 189

11 Brown-Coated Killers: August, The West Coast 209

12 The Call of the North: August, Isle of Rum 233

13 Journey's End: August/September, Isle of Mull 249

Afterword 263

Something Very Simple You Can Do for Shearwaters 267

Bibliography 269

Acknowledgements 273

Notes 277

Editorial Reviews

04/16/2021

As a child, when Morgan-Grenville (Liquid Gold) first saw the flap-flap-flap-glide of Manx shearwater birds in flight, he was immediately hooked. A half century later, Morgan-Grenville promised himself that he would shadow the Manx shearwater for a year, though he knew it would be a challenge to follow a pelagic bird (which spends most of its life on the ocean). He traces his efforts in this account, which offers a pleasant mixture of facts and an imagined narrative of the shearwater T72, a chick that he handles as she is weighed by researchers before her journey. T72 takes readers from the Scottish coast to Patagonia, then to Ireland and back to the Scottish Isle of Mull, which is where the author's passion for the birds first took flight. The book has handy and often humorous footnotes, and readers will enjoy relaxing into the story, which, for all its imagined narrative, is grounded in realism. Endnotes include information on the conservation of shearwaters. VERDICT A nice reminder of how to pursue interests despite obstacles. Readers will identify with the author's personal journey of remembrances (especially of his grandmother) and discovery.—Elissa Cooper, Helen Plum Memorial Lib., Lombard, IL

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