There are about 144 cuckoo species across the world including anis, coucals and roadrunners (I love the Greater Roadrunner!). Not all of them, by any means, are brood parasites but understandably that habit features prominently in this book as it is biologically fascinating and leads the Common Cuckoo into many cultural references.
The six chapters take us through the variety of cuckoos, their biology, their presence in myth and folklore, as timekeepers both as heralds of spring and as poster boys of Swiss clocks, the meaning of their song to us and to them, and what the future holds.
This is a good popular account of cuckoos covering much ground in an intelligent way and containing much thoughtful content.
The cover? Simple, but a bit dark, and whereas I sometimes criticise covers for being covered in words this one could make the words a little bigger and more visible. But I’ll give it 7/10.
Cuckoo by Cynthia Chris is published by Reaktion books.
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