Michael McCarthy is one of Britain's leading environmental journalists, formerly environment correspondent of The Times and environment editor of The Independent. He has won a string of awards for his writing, including the Medal of the RSPB, for 'outstanding services to conservation.' His book Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo (2009), a study of Britain's summer migrant birds, was widely praised; The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy (2015) was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize and the Richard Jefferies Prize.