I have been so lucky to work in the Zoology Department of Cambridge University, and to have the privilege of a Fellowship of Pembroke College. I could not imagine a happier or more stimulating environment than these two welcoming homes from home. During the last three decades, I have been fortunate to study cuckoos and their hosts with many wonderful colleagues. The ideas discussed in this book have been developed together with them, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge their inspiration and friendship: Michael Brooke, Terry Burke, Stuart Butchart, William Duckworth, Tibor Fuisz, David Gibbons, Lisle Gibbs, Ian Hartley, Alex Kacelnik, Chris Kelly, Rebecca Kilner, Oliver Krüger, Naomi Langmore, Anna Lindholm, Joah Madden, Susan McRae, David Noble, Jarkko Rutila, Michael Sorenson, Claire Spottiswoode, Martin Stevens, Ian Stewart, Cassie Stoddard, Rose Thorogood and Justin Welbergen. I also thank the Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society for their generous funding of our studies.
It is a pleasure, too, to thank the National Trust, for giving me the freedom of the nature reserve of Wicken Fen, and the staff there for their encouragement and friendship over many years: Lois Baker, Wilf Barnes, Ian Barton, Tim Bennett, Matthew Chatfield, Joan Childs, Adrian Colston, Howard Cooper, Mark Cornell, Paula Curtis, Anita Escott, John Hughes, Jenny Hupe, Kevin James, Debbie Jones, Jenny Kershaw, Grant Lahore, Carol Laidlaw, Martin Lester, Sandy MacIntosh, Tracey McLean, Ian Reid, Andy Ross, Ralph Sargeant, Isabel Sedgwick, James Selby, Mike Selby, Chris Soans, Karen Staines, Jack Watson, Jake Williams and Ruby Wood.
The bird ringers of the Wicken Fen Group have generously shared their data on bird populations on the fen. I particularly thank Chris Thorne, who has led this group since 1971, together with Peter Bircham, Phil Harris, Michael Holdsworth, Jo Jones, Neil Larner and Alan Wadsworth.
I’m honoured that James McCallum’s drawings grace this book. He is not only a brilliant artist but also an original observer of wildlife, always drawing in the field and spending long hours getting to know the behaviour of his subjects. His drawings are full of light and movement, bringing the dramas of nature straight to the page. They make me smile and long to go out to the fens again, inspired by his artistic eye to have a fresh look at cuckoos and their hosts.
It is a privilege to illustrate the book with Richard Nicoll’s award-winning photographs of cuckoos and reed warblers, taken on Wicken Fen. They show that watching these birds is at once both a beautiful and an astonishing experience. I also thank Charles Tyler for his wonderful photographs of cuckoos and meadow pipits, taken on Dartmoor. Claire Spottiswoode has been generous in allowing me to include her photographs, taken in Africa, of egg signatures in hosts and parasites, and of honeyguide chicks with their murderous bill hooks. Others who have generously provided photographs are Bill Carr (courtesy of Alan and Margery Wilkins), Juha Haikola, Dave Leech, Helge Sørensen, Artur Stankiewicz, Keita Tanaka and Ian Wyllie.
Tim Birkhead, Jeremy Mynott and my wonderful editor at Bloomsbury, Bill Swainson, read the whole manuscript and gave excellent advice on an early draft. I also thank Becky Alexander, Anna Simpson and Imogen Corke at Bloomsbury for their expert help at guiding the manuscript through to publication, and Hugh Brazier for superb copy-editing. For help with particular chapters, I thank Joanna Bellis (for cuckoos in medieval poetry), Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Tim Dee, Hildegard Diemberger, Chris Hewson, Rebecca Kilner, David Lahti, Naomi Langmore, Audrey Meaney (for translating the cuckoo riddle in The Exeter Book from the Old English), Michael Reeve, Norman Sills, Claire Spottiswoode, Keita Tanaka, Chris Thorne and Rose Thorogood.
My greatest thanks, as always, are to my wife Jan and my daughters Hannah and Alice.