The Nightjar Project: Sound Scrapes (Sound 8)
Sound Scrapes is part of a project that takes evocative recordings of Ghanaian life and transposes them into related environments here in the New Forest. The Nightjar Project uses the bird’s migration to represent the fluid movement of people, histories, cultures and ideas between the UK and Ghana.
Life On The Black River
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“We hear the river flowing, you can hear it talking to you.” Kwame reflects on the presence of the Black River as it flows through history. “I tell people to stop and listen as the river is speaking to us. I love to hear the children playing in the river, the laughing voices, their joy. You can also hear the old chains now, clanging away. The old colonial chain ferry built by the British across the Black River. The ferry has gone but everybody still uses the chains as a way to anchor yourself and pull yourself across the river.”
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An Interesting Fact About Nightjars
A European Nightjar is a small, nocturnal bird with a distinctive appearance, characterized by its cryptic, mottled grey and brown plumage that closely resembles tree bark, a flat head, large dark eyes, a small but wide mouth, and long pointed wings and tail; male nightjars have noticeable white patches on the tips of their wings and tail, which they flash during display flights; overall, they look somewhat like a small falcon when in flight, and are more often heard than seen due to their excellent camouflage.
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