CUCKOOS LEA: THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF BIRDS AND PLACE (HB)

Hidden in the names of English towns and villages, in copses, fields, lanes and hills, are the ghostly traces of birds. Captivated and guided by place names, the author finds their stories entangled with his own explorations across England: in marshes where curlews cry, silent cuckoo-woods lost under concrete sprawl, the winter roosts of corvids and a vanished owl village. Weaving together early literature, history and ornithology, this is a journey to rediscover the past and to understand how it informs the present.