Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds Predicted Environmental Crisis 70 Years Ago

In Daphne du Maurier’s short story, The Birds (1952), a change in bird behaviour is linked to the impact of technological developments after the second world war.

Birds, as the 2022 State of the World’s Birds report warns, are “barometers for planetary health”. Nearly half of global bird species are now in decline. In du Maurier’s apocalyptic tale, set in Cornwall, birds launch vicious and unprovoked attacks on humans.

Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation, The Birds, celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2023. Revisiting du Maurier’s story of relentless devastation shows how the writer anticipated some of today’s most pressing environmental concerns.

Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds

In her 1989 memoir, Enchanted Cornwall, du Maurier claims that she was inspired by seeing a tractor ploughing a field in Cornwall surrounded by circling “cloud of screaming gulls”.

story, which obscured her original narrative. Modern readers need to “look” at du Maurier’s The Birds more closely to see that “something in nature has turned against us”.

In du Maurier’s thriller of altered nature, birds become the violent emissaries of death. She terrorised contemporary readers with a vision of the future, which is now very close to the present.

Catherine Wynne is an Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise, Faculty of Arts, Cultures and Education, University of Hull, Published the article first in The Conversation.