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The arms’ race between the wily cuckoo and ever more crafty host birds revealed by a man who has dedicated his working life to one of nature’s great mysteries – how does the cuckoo get away with it?
Nick Davies is Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Pembroke College. His cuckoo research has been presented on BBC 4 Radio, and as a BBC film, produced by Mike Birkhead and narrated by David Attenborough. His previous books include Cuckoos, Cowbirds and other Cheats that won Best Book of the Year from the British Trust for Ornithology and British Birds Magazine.
This amazing detective story by one of the country’s greatest field
naturalists is also a fascinating study that solves many of the
puzzles surrounding this most extraordinary bird
*Sir David Attenborough*
Wonderful
*Country Life*
Davies’ beguiling account of his 30 years’ cuckoo-watching on the
East Anglian fens brings a far more sensible and revelatory
approach to the subject. Davies is a leading field naturalist whose
work will be known to Radio 4 listeners. He frames his research and
discoveries as “a nature detective story”, a natural
history-mystery … The tale features astonishing insights into the
processes of both evolution and scientific research, and it
beguiles because of Davies’ plain, personable style and his
relating of his own experiments … the reader is taken nest-hunting,
fake-egg planting and landscape-gazing. Rich, tactile description
is lightly burnished with the poetic while illustrations by
watercolourist James McCallum complete a package that will suit
both dedicated twitcher and armchair naturalist alike, and gives
springtime’s feathered friend and fiend a fair hearing at last
*Independent*
The cuckoo … is also nature’s most notorious cheat. Ever since
Aristotle noted … that “it lays its eggs in the nest of small birds
after devouring these birds’ eggs”, people have been appalled by
its parasitic behaviour and puzzled by how on earth, given its
disproportionate size compared with its hosts, it gets away with
such brazen dissembling. In this fascinating piece of
natural-history detective work, Nick Davies, professor of
behavioural ecology at Cambridge University, looks at how it does
it
*Sunday Times*
Davies is a hugely knowledgeable and readable guide, whose
reasoning is often fascinating … This is a fine and involving book,
whose insights – wrung from decades of hard graft and constant
questioning – make you wonder again at nature’s extraordinary
ingenuity
*Sunday Times*
Charming … Reveals how Wicken’s reed warblers are locked in an
evolutionary arms race in The Fens with the female cuckoo
*Daily Express*
A new book tells in mesmerising detail how the host birds are first
outwitted by the female cuckoo, and then by the cuckoo chick.
Cuckoo – Cheating By Nature is by Nick Davies, the world expert on
Cuculus canorus, the Eurasian cuckoo, our bird. He gives a riveting
account not only of how the cuckoo evolves deceptive stratagems,
such as eggs which mimic the eggs of the host, but also of how the
host birds evolve defences, such as learning to reject any eggs
which seems slightly different from their own. This is in effect an
“evolutionary arms race” and its complexities are elucidated with
exemplary clarity and humour by Professor Davies … An even more
fascinating take on curious behaviour. I’ve just read it, and it’s
a terrific read
*Independent*
The perfect combination of science and folklore
*Guardian*
Fascinating … A fine and involving book, whose insights make you
wonder again at nature’s extraordinary ingenuity
*Sunday Times*
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