Cuckoos and Clocks,
Ad infinitum
Saki
Artwork for ‘Birds‘ (Issue 26)
The Science
Cuckoos are brood parasites: they lay their eggs in the nests of others, leaving the foster parents to rear their young. But how do chicks born into this charade later find their true identity? A study found that cuckoos undergo a second round of imprinting, learning the famous ‘cuc-koo’ call from conspecifics who visit when the fledglings leave the nest. Although the songs learned from the foster parents are not sung after re-imprinting, the memory of them helps cuckoos find their original host species when it is their turn to breed. Like intricate clockwork, the cycle repeats generation after generation.
The Medium
TDigital watercolours of cuckoos were drawn on a tablet, using reference photos from birdwatching guidebooks. Clocks were sketched out with ink pen and paper. These were then scanned and layered with the digital watercolours into a digital canvas size of 23 x 23 cm. The title 'Cuckoos and Clocks, Ad Infinitum' refers to the repeating tiling – the artwork can be seamlessly tiled into a continuous canvas that extends infinitely in every direction, symbolizing the cyclical perpetuation of the species through time.
Associated poem:
Cuckoo clock, do you tick and tock
As a form of farcical façade?
Cuckoo bird, unrelatably* absurd,
Do you even know that you are odd?
Long ago, your mother wished you all the best
As she laid you in another mother’s nest.
With no father there to show you how to sing,
It’s no wonder you became a silly thing.
Cuckoo clock, like a key and lock
Who have somehow been together brought –
Cuckoo, cuckoo, now the two of you
Repeat the same old story never taught.
(* whilst ‘unrelatably’ is not a word it is allowed here in the context of poetic licence)
The Artist
Saki is a scientist-artist with a background in phylogenetics and genomics. After working as a scientist in the biotech industry for almost a decade, she moved from California to Vienna to pursue a career as a science communication artist with a focus on sustainability and environmental science.
Check out her other work at: sakitheartist.com.
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license