A blog that records the birds (and sometimes other animals) living around Umeå and the places I travel. Through photography, observations, conversations and writing, it explores the relationships between species, landscapes, art and ecology within their political contexts. It’s also a place where I’m learning to notice everyday phenology: the small seasonal shifts and the broader environmental effects they hint at. It also follows how new technologies and AI are changing the ways we watch, record and understand other species.
Two water frogs sitting on a dead Bird floating in a backwater of the Bega, 29 August. One is at the top right, one at the bottom left. Both are green with a pale stripe down the back. Small flies cover the carcass, and the frogs sit on it to catch them.
A cuckoos call seems to carry a long way and move about, coming from different directions, so you never quite know where its coming from. This is the first Cuckoo i have ever photographed.
I was lucky it was there at all. Adult cuckoos leave early, most are gone from northern Sweden by the end of July, so this one was a straggler hanging on into August.
Where they go was a mystery for centuries. The cuckoo turns up, calls for a few weeks, then vanishes, and for a long time nobody could say where to. One old idea was that it didn't leave at all but turned into a hawk for the winter, I like these old Myth about morhping and transforming in to differnt birds and animals.
The BTO has been tagging cuckoos since 2011, mapping the whole trip to the Congo and back. It's also how we know how much trouble they're in, UK numbers are down by a third since 1995. You can follow this year's birds crossing the Sahara right now.
By the time they reach the Congo they've gone quiet. The cuckoo only cuckoos here, on the breeding ground in spring. In Africa it doesn't call at all.
