Threading together science and poetry with a sense of wonder, Adam Nicolson’s
The Seabird’s Cry reminds us that these birds are always there at the edge of our existence: at once familiar and utterly mysterious ... The elegance of the writing, and the very human curiosity and compassion for the seabirds themselves, is enthralling. As Mr. Nicolson sets out to explore 'the ways in which seabirds exert their hold on the human imagination,' we are enlightened by a wealth of expert and amateur voices ... and by Mr. Nicolson’s sustained and powerful cry for a greater understanding and empathy of [the seabirds'] unique environments.
[Adam Nicolson] is one of the publishing world's most reliably entertaining polymaths, and in this latest book, he turns his attention to the 350 bird species...that have colonized the windswept coastlines, raw rock outcrops, and open oceans of the planet ... throughout The Seabird's Cry, Nicolson regularly offers a narrative counterpoint to that hard world. He travels to the places where these strangest of all birds make their homes, and he does what all the best natural history writers do: he conveys to his readers the immediacy of these creatures.
for all Nicolson’s determination to celebrate the cultural significance of birds that have magnetised his mind, there’s a proper dose of gritty reality here too, not just in his horror that 'science is coming to understand the seabirds just as they are dying.' This is a visceral book ... his writing is expansive, generous and beautifully composed, rather than elitist.
Tales — stories, anecdotes, yarns — are an important part of this book, for this is a communing with these creatures as much as a marveling at how they live. He brings the outdoors to inside your head ... He devotes a chapter to each of the birds...some delicate as china and some ruffians...and all brought close to the reader without losing its wildness.
Naturalist, essayist, and historian Nicolson (Why Homer Matters, 2014, etc.) offers intimate, engrossing portraits of 10 seabirds, based on abundant scientific research as well as firsthand observation in the birds’ natural habitats ... A buoyant celebration of seabirds that serves as an important reminder of nature’s fragility.
[Nicolson] blends insightful ethological observations with elements of the mythical and peppers his delivery of practical, premodern knowledge with poetic imagery ... Nicolson combines a huge amount of scientific information with deeply emotional content and the net effect is moving and quietly profound.
As he examines the lives of 10 seabirds, from the extinct great auk to the wandering albatross, and from the gulls to the cormorants, Nicolson quotes from sources as varied as Coleridge and other poets, scientific studies, memoirs, and local folks ... Nicolson writes lyrically of birds most of us only briefly notice when visiting a rocky shoreline, beings possessing extraordinary forms of understanding we have never shared.
