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Collaboration We invited eight poets to collaborate with eight scientists and conservationists from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. Here are the results. Hot Water Daljit Nagra There it goes, all day long. Knocking into the waves of itself. Does it hurt? Are there knots of bloom-blood shoaling through its fathoms like revenant fish? Are there atmospheres in the ocean – vacuums from the killing lick of heat that sway like a vast and mountainous nought? The ocean of emptiness of hope and history where fisherman and birds no longer feast. The last boy lobs a stone on the shining water but it’s swallowed like a gong, a hollow ommm. I was grateful to Dr James Pearce-Higgins for giving up his valuable time so he could explain to me his invaluable work. His fascination with migratory birds freshened my imagination with information that implied multiculturalism. He explained how it is natural for birds to travel great distances; he gave the example of cuckoos. Recent technology has allowed cuckoos to be closely tracked as they travel around the world. I was astonished to learn that cuckoos travel to the Congo, whether they’re born in Britain, China or Afghanistan; these birds, without the aid of nurture, end up in exactly the same region for about nine months of the year. 44 I tried to write a poem about cuckoos but that became as difficult as, say, trying to rhyme love with above. So many poets have written about cuckoos, most notably the 13th century lyric, Sumer is Icumen in, also known as Cuckoo Song. Perhaps the best approach to climate change is to celebrate the world yet poets have always done this. Instead, I found my imagination, that old trickster, create a bleak prophecy, of our seas inhabiting the condition of the Dead Sea. Daljit Nagra was born and raised in London and Sheffield to Sikh Punjabi parents. His most recent collection is British Museum (Faber, 2017).
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Migratory connections in a changing climate by Dr James Pearce-Higgins The climate we all experience is affected by common causes of change. This commonality masks inequality between those responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions and those likely to suffer the most serious consequences. The gulf between the affluent countries of Europe and North America, and the vulnerable of tropical Africa and South America, is bridged by millions of inter-continental migratory birds on their seasonal movements. The same swifts that nest in English church towers catch insects over the tropical savannas of Mozambique in winter. The cuckoos whose call echoes across the British countryside in summer spend even longer in the Congo Basin during our winter. Migratory birds help us connect with the climatic changes that different societies along their routes are exposed to. The livelihoods of pastoral farmers of the Sahel depend on the rains which stimulate green growth during our summer for their livestock to browse. That same rain provides fruit and insects for many long-distance migrants returning to Africa after breeding in the UK, to recharge their energy after crossing the Sahara. The volume of rain that falls determines the overwinter survival of species such as the sedge warbler or whitethroat that winter in Africa. Fluctuations in the populations of these birds breeding in Britain tell us about the conditions those farmers would have experienced over the previous year. The numbers of cuckoos returning to the Congo may be declining in response to climate change, whether due to shifts in the timing of spring on their European breeding grounds, falling insect populations in Western Europe, or increasing drought conditions in the Mediterranean, connecting African societies with climate change in Europe. The decline in abundance of many migratory birds is one of the conservation challenges of our time. Because they are affected by changing conditions across their life-cycle as they move between continents, they show us particularly vividly the effect our actions are having on natural systems and processes across the globe – and on societies very different from our own. Organisations like the British Trust for Ornithology combine information collected by thousands of volunteers about the birds they see, with scientific enquiry and analysis to understand how and why bird populations are changing, and the skills of those that tell stories about those changes. Together, we can inspire others to hearken to what the call of the cuckoo or the scream of the swift may be telling us about environmental change across our world. James Pearce-Higgins is Director of Science at the British Trust for Ornithology. He leads BTO’s climate change research. 45

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Migratory connections in a changing climate by Dr James Pearce-Higgins

The climate we all experience is affected by common causes of change. This commonality masks inequality between those responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions and those likely to suffer the most serious consequences. The gulf between the affluent countries of Europe and North America, and the vulnerable of tropical Africa and South America, is bridged by millions of inter-continental migratory birds on their seasonal movements. The same swifts that nest in English church towers catch insects over the tropical savannas of Mozambique in winter. The cuckoos whose call echoes across the British countryside in summer spend even longer in the Congo Basin during our winter.

Migratory birds help us connect with the climatic changes that different societies along their routes are exposed to. The livelihoods of pastoral farmers of the Sahel depend on the rains which stimulate green growth during our summer for their livestock to browse. That same rain provides fruit and insects for many long-distance migrants returning to Africa after breeding in the UK, to recharge their energy after crossing the Sahara. The volume of rain that falls determines the overwinter survival of species such as the sedge warbler or whitethroat that winter in Africa. Fluctuations in the populations of these birds breeding in Britain tell us about the conditions those farmers would have experienced over the previous year. The numbers of cuckoos returning to the Congo may be declining in response to climate change, whether due to shifts in the timing of spring on their European breeding grounds, falling insect populations in Western Europe, or increasing drought conditions in the Mediterranean, connecting African societies with climate change in Europe.

The decline in abundance of many migratory birds is one of the conservation challenges of our time. Because they are affected by changing conditions across their life-cycle as they move between continents, they show us particularly vividly the effect our actions are having on natural systems and processes across the globe – and on societies very different from our own. Organisations like the British Trust for Ornithology combine information collected by thousands of volunteers about the birds they see, with scientific enquiry and analysis to understand how and why bird populations are changing, and the skills of those that tell stories about those changes. Together, we can inspire others to hearken to what the call of the cuckoo or the scream of the swift may be telling us about environmental change across our world.

James Pearce-Higgins is Director of Science at the British Trust for Ornithology. He leads BTO’s climate change research.

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