Cornwall his novels are mainly set in Cornwall. Daphne du Maurier lived at Menabilly near Fowey and many of her novels had Cornish settings, including "Rebecca", "Jamaica Inn", "Frenchman's Creek", "My Cousin Rachel", and "The House on the Strand". She is also noted for writing "Vanishing Cornwall". Cornwall provided the inspiration for "The Birds", one of her terrifying series of short stories, made famous as a film by Alfred Hitchcock. Medieval Cornwall is the setting of the trilogy by Monica Furlong, "Wise Child", "Juniper", and "Colman", as well as part of Charles Kingsley's "Hereward the Wake". Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of
Sooty shearwater birds; in 2009 the number was estimated to be closer to 40 per cage. On August 18, 1961, the "Santa Cruz Sentinel" reported that thousands of crazed sooty shearwaters were sighted on the shores of North Monterey Bay in California, regurgitating anchovies, flying into objects, and dying on the streets. The incident sparked the interest of local resident Alfred Hitchcock, along with a story about spooky bird behavior by British writer Daphne du Maurier, helping to inspire Hitchcock's 1963 thriller "The Birds", a cautionary tale of nature revolting against man. The film is now ranked among the American Film Institute's