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The Cuckoo’s Lea

Author Michael J. Warren
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Run Time 1 minutes
Format Audio
Genre European history: medieval period, middle ages, Memoirs, Nature and the natural world: general interest, Travel writing, Wildlife: birds and birdwatching: general interest.

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What to expect

Birds have long inspired our emotional and imaginative connections to physical environments, but where did it all begin?

Hidden in the names of English towns and villages, in copses, fields, lanes and hills, are the ghostly traces of birds conjuring powerful identities for people in ancient landscapes. What are their stories and secrets? How did people encounter birds over a thousand years ago?

In The Cuckoo’s Lea, Michael J. Warren sets out on the trail of these ghosts. Captivated and guided by the secrets of place names, he finds their stories entangled with his own explorations of places through birds all across England. The past is hauntingly and movingly present on timeless marshes where curlews cry, where goshawks are breeding again for the first time in centuries, through silent cuckoo-woods lost under concrete sprawl, in the winter roosts of corvids and an owl village that vanished centuries ago.

Weaving together early literature, history and ornithology, this book takes readers on a journey far into the past to contemplate the nature of place and to discover a fascinating heritage that matters deeply to us now when so many places and their birds are threatened or already gone.

Critics Review

The best statement for the importance of the medieval I’ve ever read. A wonderful book.

David Crystal, linguist and author of The Stories of English

Magical, enchanting and intriguing. Read in wonder and see Britain made anew with eyes that are both ancient and modern.

Mary Colwell, author of The Gathering Place

Utterly beguiling, deeply poignant and revelatory, a cartographic overlay of language and land and our place in nature. A book with a pertinent and radical message from the past – that nature is our house, our dwelling-place and neighbourhood, from where we can chart a new course, with a very old compass.

Nicola Chester, author of On Gallows Down

Scholarly, fresh, exquisitely crafted and breathtakingly, heart-achingly beautiful, The Cuckoo’s Lea weaves the human and natural history of England into a tapestry that will transform your relationship with place. Michael Warren has made a book I’ll love forever.

Amy-Jane Beer, author of The Flow

A brilliant blend of birds, places, history and language – all held together with a deft personal touch – and a surprise on every page.

Stephen Moss, author of Ten Birds That Changed the World

This is a book filled with calls and cries, booming, twittering, shrieking, singing – a joyful affirmation of life, revealed through quiet observation and reflection. The Cuckoo’s Lea reminds us to listen and love the highly distinctive species which have shaped local identities.

Fiona Stafford, author of Time and Tide

A fascinating, haunting book which unveils the rich meaning layered into our places. The Cuckoo’s Lea is a rosetta stone for our ecological history.

Jon Moses, Right to Roam

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