Cuckoo about Cuckoos

by Theodore Dalrymple (September 2015)

When I was a boy I used to collect wild birds’ eggs, but I think I always knew that I had no serious purpose in doing so and that the passion would not last. I had not the patience of a real ornithologist; rather I was beguiled by the joys of the chase, the beauty of the eggs and pleasures of possession. Luckily I never took the eggs of any but the commonest birds, so that my contribution to the decline of bird populations was very minor. I suppose that for every hundred boys who go bird-nesting, only one becomes a true nature-lover.  more>>>