![]() ![]() If he was successful, he hoped to provide a model for restoring seabirds elsewhere. Inspired by reintroductions of Peregrine Falcons after DDT nearly wiped them out, Stephen Kress, a 28-year-old environmental educator, dreamed of reestablishing Maine’s lost puffin colonies. Those five chicks were the first Atlantic Puffins in a century to set webbed feet on Eastern Egg Rock, a seven-acre island located six miles off the Maine coast. ![]() “I don’t know if I breathed that whole time,” says Kathleen Blanchard, recounting that night in August 1973 when she watched the chick she’d raised from when it was 10 days old leave for parts unknown. Finally, it leaped into the water and then paddled into the darkness. Like a nervous swimmer on a high board, the plump bird with a parrotlike bill stood, whirring its wings. On a tall boulder overlooking the sea, one paused and peered over the ledge. "It's splendid - a classic whodunnit" - Bill OddieOne by one, five puffin chicks scrambled over rocks in the moonlight, making their way toward the sound of crashing waves. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether.īut as he and his fellow “twitchers” flocked from Norfolk to Scotland to the Scilly Isles, in response to rumours of rare sightings, George – with help from his lovely wife, Molly – gradually discerned the true markings of a killer. George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. In England’s birdwatching paradise, a new breed has been sighted – a murderer. A Bird in the Hand is the first novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. ![]()
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