World Photography Day: Xavi Bou’s photos show the magical traces birds leave in the sky

During lockdown, in a flat on the Costa Brava, Xavi Bou became even more obsessed with birds. The Spanish photographer had already made a name for himself with his extraordinary pictures, stringing together hundreds of snapshots of birds into collages of movement.

His mesmerising images capture roughly 20 seconds, overlaid to show the idiosyncratic flight paths of playful robins, dancing starlings and stiff-winged fulmars.

“All my life I’ve been interested in nature, especially in birds, but it was not at that level of madness,” he tells Euronews Green.

Confined to a balcony in March 2020, which coincided with bird migration, he counted 50 species. He began drawing them with his children, and learning their calls - a practice he recommends for anyone who wants to “feel you have superpowers.”

Bou wasn’t alone in paying closer attention to the natural world. “It was magical that many people got interested in birds and nature during the lockdown and have since followed this passion,” he says. “It was a great moment for conservationists.”

Those who discovered Bou’s ‘Ornithographies’ in the pandemic no doubt felt something of the same vicarious freedom.

“One of the most wonderful things is the different people who have got in touch with me because they were inspired by my work,” he says. They include dance choreographers, orchestral composers, bridge architects, sculptors, tattoo artists, biologists, physicists and scientists - notably those involved in biomimicry, which applies nature’s solutions to technology.

This diverse fanbase speaks to the way ‘Ornithographies’ hovers between art and documentary. Bou, 43, is clear that the decade-long project comes down on the former side, however; “for me the difference of art is that the