Flight Lines: Tracking the Wonders of Bird Migration (sampler)

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Flight Lines

Flight Lines

Greg Poole Yellow Wagtail Gouache Greg Poole Sand Martins Gouache

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Flight Lines

Personal Narrative Malcolm Green and I felt a mixture of excitement, disbelief and relief as we squinted at the cursor on the GPS screen. After six days of hard travelling; 15 hours of flights, 18 hours by train, 220 km gruelling off-road driving and 8 km on foot, we finally stood in a picturesque valley frequented by two of the BTO’s tagged Cuckoos.

Cuckoo flight data and our stubborn resolve had led us to a remote part of the Batéké Plateau, in eastern Gabon, close to the Congolese border.

Visually this landscape is the sister of Cumbria or central Wales. Lone trees, serving as ideal perches, stud verdant grass and rolling scrubland fringed by rich gallery forest under a porcelain blue sky. Yet my other senses painted a very different picture. The air is fragrant but arid, the sun fierce and the heat utterly oppressive.

The Cuckoo is one of Britain’s best loved and studied migratory birds. We adore its distinctive call and cheeky breeding habits but our empathy and understanding has thus far been restricted to our shores and done little to halt a rapid population decline. The BTO’s study empirically proves, that after an epic and perilous journey, our Cuckoos spend the majority of winter here in Central Africa.

Packing a long lens or binoculars and attempting to spot a Cuckoo was a distraction, it felt frivolous and even selfish. Instead I was determined to explore, document and publish the human and geographic narratives that the birds inhabit and share in Gabon. In so doing I hope to bring this little known country closer to home and help focus a future lens of conservation efforts and study towards it.

Toby Smith Photojournalist.

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Flight Lines

Harriet Mead Scissor Stone-curlew Welded found objects Brin Edwards Stone-curlews with hare Oil on canvas

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