Horatio Clare

Birds have helped mankind throughout history — but we have repaid them cruelly

Roy and Lesley Adkins’s tales of parrots, pigeons, kittiwakes and canaries that have saved human lives make for stirring but often sad reading

A caged canary used by miners to detect the build-up of deadly gasses. [Getty Images]
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  • When There Were Birds: The Forgotten History of Our Connections

    Roy and Lesley Adkins

    Little Brown, pp. 496, £25

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