Birds: Through Irish Eyes

Watching birds is a growing pastime for many people but how much do we really know about them? A lifetime spent identifying and photographing birds makes Anthony McGeehan the ideal guide to show us our birds in a different way, creatures that, to survive and delight us, bear an increasingly heavy load. They are beautiful and clever but are increasingly vulnerable because of modern farming practices, pollution, climate change and hunting. Birds presents the lives and times of the birds that surround us. Each has a story to tell, from Brent Geese, who perform an annual round trip from here to Canada, to Kestrels that engage ultra-violet vision to detect mice, from vanishing souls such as Corncrake and Skylarks. People's lives are intertwined with those of birds and the author encourages us to look and listen, to protect and understand and most of all to recognise the beauty of the birds around us. Lavishly illustrated and engrossingly narrated, this book is the birds' moment and, for some, perhaps, salvation.